The Ven David Scott: Obituary

David Scott was an outstanding cleric of his generation.

As a boy he had been a chorister at Westminster Abbey. He was there for the lying-in-state of George V and sang at the coronation of George VI. It was during this time that he developed a great love of the Church of England, its long and chequered history inextricably bound up with the life of the nation and its pattern of liturgy, discipline and pastoral care.

During the Second World War he served in the non- combatant corps of the Army and in 1947 he went up to Trinity Hall, Cambridge, at which time Launcelot Fleming was chaplain. After graduating he went to Cuddesdon for his theological training and he found there a lively generation of men, most of whom had found their vocation to the ordained ministry in the many different circumstances of wartime service.

He was ordained in 1952 to serve his first curacy at St Mark's, Portsmouth, and after a brief spell as a chaplain at London University he went in 1959 to be vicar of Old Brumby, Scunthorpe. Here the five or six parishes were working together under the leadership of Gerald Colin, vicar of Frodingham and later Bishop of Grimsby.

The development of the iron ore industry had transformed five or six scattered villages into the busy industrial town of Scunthorpe. Here Scott served during the expansion of church life until 1966 when he was appointed vicar of Boston, an ancient market town and seaport in the great agricultural area of South Lincolnshire. He became rural dean of East Holland and in 1971 Canon of Lincoln Cathedral. In Boston he exercised a great pastoral ministry in the community and delighted in the order of worship and teaching at St Botolph's, generally known as "the stump".

In 1975, after nine years of pastoral care and priestly service at Boston he was made Archdeacon of Stow and vicar of Hackthorn. In the midst of his administrative duties as Archdeacon he delighted in his incumbency of the small parishes in which he lived and where he was first and foremost the local parson caring for people at the parish level. His experience of both industry and agriculture in Lincolnshire stood him in good stead in his years as Archdeacon. In 1984 he was made a chaplain to the Queen.

Sadly by reason of ill-health he found it necessary to retire in 1989 and he and his wife Christine, who through all his ministry had been such a great support, went to live in Southall just outside the diocesan boundary. He will be remembered for his great pastoral care, for his wise judgement and his quiet sense of humour. Of David Scott it may be said, as it was said of some 19th- century priest: "He was a faithful priest and pastor, a very competent fisher of men: he was what he ever desired to be since he first put his hand to the plough."

9David Scott, priest: born 19 June 1924; ordained deacon 1952, priest 1953; Assistant Chaplain, London University 1958-59; Perpetual Curate, Old Brumby 1959-66; Vicar of Boston, Lincolnshire 1966-75; Canon and Prebendary of Lincoln Cathedral 1971-89; Rural Dean of Holland East 1971-75; Archdeacon of Stow 1975-89; Vicar of Hackthorn with Cold Hanworth 1975-89; Priest- in-charge of North and South Carlton 1978-89; Chaplain to the Queen 1983- 94; married (one son, one daughter); died 31 August 1996.