John Halliday Scott

Prof John Halliday Scott FRSE (28 December 1851 – 25 February 1914) was a Scottish-born New Zealand university professor, artist and medical school dean.

Early life and education

He was born John Lidderdale Scott in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1851. His parents were Marion Shaw Lidderdale and Andrew Scott (WS). He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in May 1880. His proposers were Sir Charles Wyville Thomson, Sir William Turner, Daniel John Cunningham and Sir John Murray.

Scott practiced in Scotland for a time before he was appointed Professor of Anatomy and Physiology at the University of Otago in 1877.

He was appointed Dean of Medicine in 1891 remaining in the post until his death in 1914.

Personal life In 1882 he returned to Britain during the summer vacation (winter in UK) and in January 1883 married Helen Gardner Bealey (d.1899) in Cheltenham. She returned with him to New Zealand and they had two daughters and three sons. One son was Robert Hannay Scott who was killed in action at the Somme in World War I.

He joined the Otago Art Society

Artistic works Scott was a gifted artist and also a competent photographer.

Lusitania Bay (1880) Moeraki Builders (1889)

Publications

Contribution to the Osteology of the Aborigines of New Zealand and of the Chatham Islands. Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand, Volume 26, 1893.