Eric Oswald Gale Scott

Eric Oswald Gale Scott (18 October 1899 – 24 June 1986) was an Australian teacher, museum director, ichthyologist and pacifist. He was the director of the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery in Launceston, Tasmania.

Early life and education Eric Oswald Gale Scott was born on 18 October 1899 in Launceston, son of Herbert Hedley Scott, a curator at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, and Frances Fanny, (née Stearnes).

Scott attended Launceston State High School, where he was awarded a university prize for English language and literature and the James Scott Memorial Prize in 1917.

He then attended the Philip Smith Training College. He started studying for a bachelor's degree in science at the University of Tasmania, while working first as a teacher, and after an interruption, continued during his employment at the museum, eventually completing his degree in 1933.

He returned to teaching from 1949, teaching language and science for private schools in Launceston until he retired in 1964.

Later life, death, and legacy Scott had another brush with the law in 1971 when, with his wife Freda, refused to take a compulsory chest X-ray mandated by the Tuberculosis Act.