William Maddin Scott (1894?–1962)
William Maddin Scott was nineteen when he matriculated to the University of St Andrews in 1913, meaning he was likely born around 1894. At present, not too much is known about his life before university. His family home was in Omagh in County Tyrone, often said to be of Lisnamallard house. However, his father, William Robert Scott, had been in St Andrews since 1896, and had been Lecturer in Political Economy since 1899; in 1915, he would move to Glasgow to become Professor of Political Economy. In William Maddin Scott’s first year of studies, he took Greek, English, and Mathematics. But his studied were to be disrupted: by November 1914, he was a Second Lieutenant in the 14th (County of London) Battalion, The London Regiment (London Scottish). By December 1915, he had been wounded in action. At some point, he was promoted to Captain. He does not appear to have returned to complete his degree.
In June 1917, he married Mary Tennyson Winckley (1913-UC1-085), a clergyman’s daughter who had started at St Andrews at the same time as Scott, and had graduated M.A. in 1916. Their first son Robert Irwin Maddin Scott was born in January 1919, in Bournemouth, Hampshire.
At some point, the Scotts moved back to northern Ireland, to the family home and the family milling business, W. & C. Scott. In 1944, William held the position of High Sheriff of County Tyrone; and in 1950, he was described as ‘Managing Director’ of his family’s mill. In 1951, he edited A Hundred Years A-Milling, a book about milling tradition in the north of Ireland. He and his wife would later donate a copy of the second edition to the University of St Andrews’ Library in 1957. William Maddin Scott died of a heart attack in 1962, age sixty-seven.
This summary was written in May 2026 by Maggie Madden, then a second-year student in Medieval History and English.