Edward Taylor Scott

Who was Edward Taylor Scott?

Edward Taylor "Ted" Scott was a British journalist, who was editor and briefly co-owner of the Manchester Guardian, and the younger son of its legendary editor-owner C. P. Scott.

After a brief spell at the University of Oxford, Ted Scott attended the London School of Economics, and eventually took a University of London external degree, having left the LSE to work as private secretary to Sidney Olivier, the governor of Jamaica. While at the LSE he lodged with the family of the economist and Guardian contributor J. A. Hobson, and later married Hobson's daughter Mabel.

Ted Scott joined the Manchester Guardian in 1913 and became its commercial editor and main writer of leaders on economic policy. In the spring of 1915 he joined the army to fight in World War I. In 1918 he was captured as a prisoner of war until the end of hostilities. After the war he rejoined the paper, eventually succeeding his father as editor on 1 July 1929. Ted Scott's most important action as editor was to move the paper from its initial position of support for Ramsay MacDonald's National Government towards the opposition.