Harold Scott

Who was Harold Scott?

Sir Harold Richard Scott, GCVO, KCB, KBE was Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police from 1945 to 1953.

Scott was born in Banbury, England and raised in Bruton, Somerset. He was educated at Sexey's School and later Jesus College of the University of Cambridge. In 1911, he joined the Home Office as a civil servant, where he worked in various capacities including Secretary to the Labour Resettlement Committee and Chairman of the Prison Commission. With the outbreak of World War II, Scott's work took on a more military capacity, as he joined London's Civil Defence Administration until he was appointed as Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Aircraft Production in 1943.

In late 1944, the Home Secretary Herbert Morrison asked Scott to accept the post as Metropolitan Police Commissioner when the war was over. The appointment in 1945 caused a stir in police circles—Scott was the first Commissioner without a police or military background since Sir Richard Mayne. Unlike all subsequent commissioners, he was not a career police officer.