James George Scott

James George Scott
Born (1851-12-25)25 December 1851
Dairsie, Scotland
Died 4 April 1935(1935-04-04) (aged 83)
Nationality British
Other names Shway Yoe
Occupation Journalist and colonial administrator
Spouse(s) Geraldine Mitton
Relatives Robert Forsyth Scott
J. G. Scott (top left) and colleagues at Fort Stedman, 1889
A Chung-Tien Tibetan girl in holiday dress, taken by Scott in 1922.

Sir (James) George Scott, KCIE (pseudonym Shway Yoe, 25 December 1851 – 4 April 1935) was a Scottish journalist and colonial administrator who helped establish British colonial rule in Burma, and in addition introduced football aka soccer to Burma.

Life

He was born in Dairsie, the second son of a Presbyterian minister. His elder brother was Robert Forsyth Scott, who was to become Master of St John's College, Cambridge. Both brothers were educated in Stuttgart, then the capital of Württemberg.

He worked first as a journalist. For the London Evening Standard he covered the reprisals for the murder of J. W. W. Birch, in Perak, in 1875. He then reported from Burma, usually in Rangoon but also travelling to Mandalay, for the London Daily News and the St James's Gazette. He remained in Burma until 1882, and during most of this period was a schoolmaster (briefly acting headmaster) at St John's College, Rangoon. His most famous book, The Burman: his life and notions, was published at this period, under a pseudonym which mystified literary London but was no secret to people in Rangoon.

In 1884 Scott was again a full-time journalist, reporting, once more for the Evening Standard, on the French invasion of Tongking (now northern Vietnam). This was when he began his collecting of manuscripts, documents and ephemera, which eventually became the Scott Collection at Cambridge University Library. On the British annexation of Upper Burma he was invited to join the Burma Commission, the nucleus of the colonial civil service; he returned to Burma in 1886, stationed initially at Mandalay, Meiktila and Hlaingdet. He was a Deputy Commissioner in Burma, and was knighted as a Knight Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire (KCIE) in November 1901.[1]

G. E. Mitton and J. G. Scott in the early 1930s

In The Trouser People: a Story of Burma in the Shadow of the Empire, Andrew Marshall recounts Scott's adventures as he cajoled and bullied his way through uncharted jungle to establish British colonial rule in the Shan States, where the administration was initially established at Fort Stedman but soon moved to Taunggyi.

His collection of manuscripts and documents was given by his brother's widow to Cambridge University Library in 1934, and, long afterwards, was catalogued by Sao Saimong and Andrew Dalby. His photographs and some of his diaries are in the India Office Library.

Bogyoke Market in Rangoon, originally called "Scott Market", was not named after James George Scott but after the municipal commissioner of the time, Mr. Gavin Scott, who was commissioner from 1922 to 1930.Pearn, B.R. (1939). A History of Rangoon. Rangoon: American Baptist Mission Press. 

Family

He was married three times. His third wife was the author Geraldine Mitton, who survived him and wrote his biography.

Published works

Jointly with G. E. Mitton

Bibliography

References

  1. ↑ The London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 27374. p. 7288. 9 November 1901.

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