James Scott (1876-1939)

James Scott (8 March 1876 – 30 October 1939) was a Scottish lawyer and Liberal Party politician.

James Scott was the son of a railway superintendent from Forres, also named James Scott. He was educated at Forres Academy and at the University of Edinburgh and the University of London. In 1910 he married Georgina Geddes from Buckhaven in Fife and they had one son.

Scott was a solicitor to the Supreme Courts of Scotland and a notary public and was a partner in the firm of Mssrs. Robert Stewart and Scott of Edinburgh. He also served on a number of important Scottish public bodies. He was a member of the Game and Heather Burning Committee in 1921; a Deputy Chairman for Trade Boards for Jute, Flax, and Made-up Textiles, 1921–24; Vice-President and Trustee of the Scottish Rural Workers Approved Society and founder of the Scottish National Union of Allotment-holders.

Scott contested Moray and Nairn as a Liberal at the 1922 general election and West Renfrewshire in 1923. In October 1924 he unsuccessfully fought Kincardine and West Aberdeen but was eventually elected to the House of Commons at the 1929 general election when he gained Kincardine and West Aberdeen by the narrow majority of 668 votes beating the sitting Unionist MP C M Barclay-Harvey. In 1931 he served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Scotland, Sir Archie Sinclair in the National Government. At the 1931 general election Barclay-Harvey won the seat back in a straight fight with Scott. Although the Liberal Party had agreed to support the National Government of Ramsay MacDonald at the 1931 general election, with some reservations over the traditional Liberal policy of Free Trade, neither Scott nor Barclay-Harvey contested the election using the label National. Barclay-Harvey presumably did not feel he needed to stand aside for Scott, even though he was the sitting member of a party supporting the coalition – probably as the seat was closely contested and he knew he had a good chance of re-election and perhaps because Scott was known as a strong supporter of Free Trade.

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