Frederick George Scott

Frederick George Scott (7 April 1861 – 19 January 1944) was for the first part of his life an Anglican priest and a Canadian poet to whom the Canadian literary establishment gave the epithet "Poet of the Laurentians." He was associated with Canada's Confederation Poets, and wrote 13 books of Christian and patriotic poetry, often using the natural world to convey deeper spiritual meaning.

He is better known for the latter part of his life. In his fifties, Scott became a chaplain in the Canadian Expeditionary Force sent to France during the First World War. Despite his insistence on remaining close to the front line to give assistance to the wounded, he survived many close calls until he was seriously wounded only weeks before the Armistice. He was subsequently decorated for bravery under fire. His memoir, The Great War As I Saw It, was favourably received by both critics and the Canadian public. The book was still in print a century after publication. Scott remained a British imperialist his entire life, and wrote many hymns eulogizing his country's roles in the Boer Wars and World War I.

Early life Shortly after ordination, 1886Scott was born 7 April 1861 in Montreal, Quebec to Dr. William Edward Scott (a professor of anatomy at McGill University)

Ordination Scott attended Montreal High School before studying theology at Bishop's College, Lennoxville, Quebec, receiving a B.A. in 1881, and an M.A. in 1884. Scott wanted to become an Anglican priest but he was public in his admiration of the Anglo-Catholic views of the theologian and Anglican-turned-Catholic Cardinal John Henry Newman, who believed the Church of England needed to break away from political influences and return to liturgical practices similar to the Catholic Church. This was anathema to the fervently anti-Catholic Anglican church in Quebec, and Bishop William Bond refused to consider Scott for the priesthood. Henry Hutton (b. 1890, killed in World War I); Mary (b. 1892, married an Anglican priest); Elton (b. 1893, became professor at Bishop's College School); Charles Lennox (b. 1895, died age 9); Francis Reginald (b. 1899, became a lawyer, poet and co-founder of the New Democratic Party of Canada); and Arthur Elliot Percival (b. 1901, became a Quebec notary).

Poet In 1885, Scott printed his first chapbook, Justin and Other Poems, later included in The Soul's Quest and Other Poems (London 1888). Over the course of his life, he published another 12 volumes of poetry. Due to his use of spiritual and lyrical images taken from the natural world, he became known as "The Poet of the Laurentians." Scott was also a firm believer in the British Empire, and wrote several patriotic hymns during his life.

Chaplain Staff officers of 1st Canadian Division, 1918. (Front row): Lieut-Col J. Parsons, Brig-Gen H. Thacker, Maj-Gen A. MacDonell, Lieut-Col J. Sutherland Brown, Col H. Wright. (Back row): Lieut-Col H. Hertzberg, Hon. Lieut-Col F.G. Scott, Lieut J. Macdonnell. In 1914, Scott at age 53 was not only canon of Holy Trinity Cathedral in Quebec, but had been the chaplain of the 8th Royal Rifles for eight years. As talk of a possible European war ramped up in August 1914, Scott considered it would be his duty to accompany the Royal Rifles to Europe despite his age. The day before war was declared, Scott volunteered to join the Canadian Expeditionary Force as a chaplain. He was taken on as one of 31 chaplains of the 1st Canadian Division, and was given the honorary rank of captain. At the final church parade at the Valcartier training camp before the 1st Division embarked for Europe, Scott was asked to give the sermon before all 15,000 soldiers, as well as many notables including Prime Minister Robert Borden, Minister of War Sam Hughes, and the Governor-General (Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn), his wife and their daughter Princess Patricia. Private Donald Cleal, while recuperating from wounds in August 1917, wrote in a letter to the Toronto Star "We have a chaplain here, Canon Scott, of Quebec, who has several medals. He earned them too. He is the Divisional Chaplain and entitled to stay in the rear. But no matter how thick the fight is, he is always to be seen wherever the boys are." At the Second Battle of Ypres, Scott was close enough to the German front line that bullets were striking the wall of the stable where he was comforting the seriously wounded.

Scott often used a humorous tone when talking to the enlisted men. One time, when the teetotalling Scott was billeted in a room above an estaminet (a bar), he recounted "looking out of my window in the upper storey one day when the 2nd Battalion was marching past, and, to the breach of all good discipline, I called out to the men and asked them if they did not envy me my billet. A roar of laughter went up, and they asked me how I got there and if I could take them in as well. I told them that it was the reward of virtue, and only those who could be trusted were allowed to be housed in estaminets."

Standing by the grave of his son Henry, Bapaume Post Military Cemetery, 20 August 1918. Photograph by Australian war correspondent Charles Bean. In March 1917, Scott was promoted to honorary lieutenant-colonel, and was made a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George, but still insisted on visiting the front lines. His excursions to the various battalions were now easier because he had been given a horse, whom he called Dandy. A few weeks later, Henry's body was recovered by a work party and reinterred in Tara Hill Cemetery (later renamed Bapaume Post Military Cemetery.) German advances placed the cemetery behind their lines for a time, but by the summer of 1918, the Allies had pushed their line forward so that the cemetery was once again behind Allied lines, and Scott was able to visit the new gravesite on 20 August 1918, a moment captured on camera by Australian war correspondent Charles Bean.

On 1 July 1917, the entire 1st Division held a special service to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Canadian Confederation, and Scott, aged 56, realized he was the only Canadian in the entire division who was old enough to remember the original Confederation Day.

He was invalided back to Canada in May 1919, and spent time in Ste. Anne's Veteran Hospital in Quebec. On 31 October 1919, more than a year after he was wounded, he was discharged from the army due to permanent partial disability from his wounds.

After the Great War After the war Scott became chaplain of the army and navy veterans, H.W.A. Foster, in the September 1922 issue of Canadian Historical Review, wrote that Scott's recollections were "characteristic of the man, who is a student of human nature, a poet, and a humourist. Told with quiet humour, his experiences furnish a very human document in the rapidly accumulating material dealing with Canada's part in the war." Scott's book eventually passed into the public domain, became available on Project Gutenberg in 2006, and was also still in print a century after its original publication.

During the Quebec Conference of 1943, Scott was invited by Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt to a private meeting where he read some of his poetry.

Scott died on 19 January 1944 in Quebec City, leaving a daughter and four sons. Canadian Press reported that "Thousands of war veterans, friends and admirers of the 'grand old man' who as senior Protestant chaplain won the hearts of the Canadian Corps almost three decades ago, crowded Christ Church cathedral, and lined the sidewalks of University and St. Catherine streets to pay their final tribute."

Through his daughter, he is the grandfather of the archaeologist Helen Kelley Morrison and the great-grandfather of Geoffrey Kelley and Mark Kelley. His son, Francis Reginald Scott, became a renowned writer.

Recognition The Canadian Encyclopedia called him "an Anglican priest, minor poet and staunch advocate of the civilizing tradition of imperial Britain, who instilled in his son [F.R. Scott] a commitment to serve mankind, a love for the regenerative balance of the Laurentian landscape and a firm respect for the social order."

WWI veteran and writer Hubert Evans recalled that "most of us sensed pretty accurately the life purpose which actuated his heroism, his humanity, his unbelievable endurance. [...] it was in his rarely voiced but unalterable conviction that every last man of us was infinitely worth while. For to Canon Scott we were never those impersonal creatures known as 'other ranks.' [...] Somehow, for him regimental numbers didn’t exist. We were Jack, with a wife and kids waiting in the far-off Peace River country; or harum-scarum Bill, with an anxious mother in Vancouver; or Tommy, of Woodstock, N.B., whose sister would be hoping for a letter. [...] A man so sensitive, but without some inwardly fortifying power, could never have borne the tragedy and suffering he shared vicariously. And yet the strange, the all but incredible, part of it was that while he did care — cared tremendously — he could still make every day a victory."

Prose Elton Hazelwood: a memoir by his friend, Henry Vane. New York: Whittaker, 1892.