John Edward Scott was born in 1830, the youngest child of a retired purser in the Royal Navy. In 1861, he married Hannah Cuming and they had four daughters - Etttie, Rose, Grace and Katherine, and two sons, Robert Falcon (born in 1868), and Archie.
After the death of his father in 1863, John Scott inherited a small brewery in Plymouth and a house called Outlands, near Devonport. Several years later, after the Plymouth brewery was sold and the capital from the sale had been reduced to almost nothing, Outlands was leased and John Scott found a job as manager of a small brewery near Shepton Mallet in Somerset. He died on 27 October 1897.
From the guide to the John Edward Scott collection, 1862-1897, (Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge)
