John Russell Scott

John Russell Scott (born July 12, 1879 in The First, Rusholme , Manchester , † April 5, 1949 in Manchester) was a British publisher. He was the owner of the Manchester Guardian newspaper .

Life and activity

Scott was the third child of CP Scott and his wife Rachel Susan Cook. His father was editor of the Manchester Guardian since 1872 ; later he sat as a Liberal MP in the House of Commons . John Scott attended Rugby School and then studied engineering at Trinity College of the University of Cambridge and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology .

At the request of his father, Scott took on the post of managing director of the Guardian in 1905 . After the death of his brother Edward in 1932, he became the sole majority owner of the Manchester Guardian and Evening News Ltd. publishing company as Chairman and Governing Director . who published the Manchester Guardian and Manchester Evening News .

Scott Trust

In 1936 he transferred control of the publisher and its periodicals to a newly created trust ( Scott Trust ), which was supposed to ensure the independence of the newspapers and their reporting. Scott was the first and only chairman of the Scott Trust . This was dissolved in 1948, after a tax law was changed so that this type of trust was also subject to inheritance tax, and a new statute was created. In 2008 the trust had to be dissolved again. It was converted into a corporation , The Scott Trust Limited, because “non-charitable trusts always have a limited lifespan , but companies can live forever.” The Scott Trust Limited is the owner of the Guardian to this day (2019) .

family

In 1908 Scott married Olga Briggs, with whom he had two sons and two daughters.

literature

• Obituary in: Manchester Guardian, April 6, 1949. ( digitized version )
• Who was who: A Companion to Who's Who. Containing the Biographies of those who died during the Period , 1967, p. 1033.