Mackay Hugh Baillie Scott

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Mackay Hugh Baillie Scott was born in Kent, the eldest of the fourteen children of a wealthy Scottish landowner with interests in Australia. Despite his aptitude for drawing he was sent to Cirencester Agricultural College to prepare him for the management of the family sheep farms in Australia. However, after completing his course he was allowed to enter the office of Charles Davis, the City Architect of Bath, as an articled pupil in 1886. In 1889 Baillie Scott married, and went to Douglas, Isle of Man where he set up his own practice as an architect Here he got to know Archibald Knox, the designer, and collaboroted with him an the design of stained glass and fire grates to embellish the houses which he was building on the island

In 1897 Baillie Scott was commissioned by the Grand Duke of Hesse to provide decorations and fumiture for the drawing-room in the Grand Ducal Palace at Darmstadt, which he did in collaboration with C. R. Ashbee, much of the work on the furniture, light-fittings and metalwork being undertaken in the Guild of Handicraft workshops In about 1901 Baillie Scott gave up his practice in Douglas and moved to Bedford, possibly to be within easy reach of John P. White, the fumiture manufacturer for whom he had been making designs since 1898. By 1901 White was able to issue a catalogue af furniture by Baillie Scott which numbered about 120 pieces, these were made at the Pyghtle Works and sold through Liberty's as well as White's own showrooms at 134 New Bond Street In 1905. Edgar Beresford came into the practice as chief assistant, he was made a partner in 1919, and carried on the proctice when Baillie Scott retired in 1939. Baillie Scott's thoughts in relation to decorative design are summarised in his book, Houses and Gardens (1933). —

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