Judith Scott
Judith Dorothea Guillum Scott OBE FSA FSA Scot – noted authority on Anglican churches and cathedrals
Secretary of the Church of England’s Council for the Care of Churches and the Cathedrals’ Advisory Committee from 1957-1971
Judith Scott was born on 6 March 1917 at 4 Battersea Park Road, in the parish of St George’s Battersea, London. Her father, Guy Harden Guillum Scott, was one of the founders of the Battersea Dogs’ Home. In recent years Judith, who was a woman of immense dignity and presence, used to say to newcomers to her circle ‘I was born in a dogs’ home’, and watch with delight the surprised expression on their faces. Her mother was Anne Dorothea, born Fitzjohn. The family lived in comfortable circumstances and her father, a barrister-at-law, later became a judge and in due course first Secretary of the Church Assembly. Judith’s elder sibling, Sir John Guillum Scott, followed in his father’s footsteps and became Secretary of the Church Assembly, then first Secretary-General of the General Synod of the Church of England. So they were a solidly Church of England family. In a short memoir about her early life Judith wrote that after she had published, at age 20, her book about the history and architecture of St Mary Abbots, Kensington, where her father was a churchwarden and had to wear top hat and tails when members of the Royal family came to church from nearby Kensington Palace, she decided on religious emancipation and took her loyalties to St Mary the Virgin, Primrose Hill. This church, under its distinguished liturgist Vicar, Percy Dearmer, became in the 1920s one of the leading Anglo-Catholic churches in London where everything was done with conviction and well. Percy Dearmer’s Parson’s Handbook, with its emphasis on beauty and dignity in every aspect of worship, remained always for Judith the gold standard of Anglican worship and the interior arrangement of churches.
The next important step in Judith’s life was when, on 13 June 1936, she joined the Central Council for the Care of Churches which was run, by Dr Francis Eeles, her great mentor, from a small suite of rooms in the Victoria & Albert Museum, close to the office of the then Director, Sir Eric MacClagan, who also became a close ally. At first she was a volunteer as Dr Eeles’s assistant. But in 1939 she became Acting Assistant Secretary and was paid a modest salary by the Central Board of Finance of the Church of England. In 1957 she became Secretary and by that time, and in no small way thanks to her advocacy and leadership, the Central Council for the Care of Churches and later the Cathedrals Advisory Committee had become well-established bodies that were proving their worth.
During the second World War the office moved to Dr Eeles’s country home in Dunster, Somerset, and one of their more ambitious projects was to find secure homes where the treasures from City of London churches could be safely stored during the war. The journey to Dunster became a regular pilgrimage for lovers of ancient churches and just after the war one such visitor was John Betjeman, researching for the Collins Guide to English Parish Churches. He wrote to Dr Eeles to say thank you and to propose another visit and said that next time ‘I will take Miss Scott to the cinema so that she will be able to clear some of those rood lofts out of her mind’. Evidently he was not successful in that mission and Judith became one of the leading church antiquaries of her day. She became a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland on 14 February 1938; later she became a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London and served on its Council. Her scholarship informed the innumerable advisory reports she wrote on behalf of the twin organizations that she served so well, and enabled her to take part in strenuous debates with confidence and skill. As was said by Duncan Wilkinson at the Service of Thanksgiving for her at Wymondham Abbey on 10 June: ‘Her sharpness of mind easily dissected the subject to which it was applied and she could always be relied upon for a unique perspective.’
After the war there was much debate about the extent to which the City of London churches should be repaired or rebuilt. On a Saturday afternoon, on the telephone, she took the courageous decision to assure the Archdeacon of London that she would somehow and personally raise the money for the restoration of All Hallows’, London Wall, a most delightful building by George Dance the Younger (to whom Sir John Soane was apprenticed as a very young man), 1768. Not only was the church superbly put back together again but it and the adjoining church rooms of 1901 were sensitively remodeled so that the Council for the Care of Churches and its sister body could establish their offices there, along with a library which became and remains one of real distinction. The chancel could, however, still be used for worship and the church became a ‘Guild Church’ governed by a special Act of Parliament. Here Judith reigned, until ill health forced her to retire early in 1971.
Meanwhile she had made a signal contribution to the evolution of Church legislation and policy with regard to the care and supervision of churches, through the Inspection of Churches Measure 1955, the Faculty Jurisdiction Measure 1964 and the Pastoral Measure 1968. She had an uncanny knack for discerning what would be the impact of new legislation and policy, and knew well how to challenge and to ask the right penetrating questions. Judith believed, following William Morris, that it was better to ‘stave off decay by daily care’ and that regular inspection by a suitably qualified architect or surveyor, followed by a careful and continuing programme of maintenance and repairs, and ceaseless vigilance would mean - and she was right – that churches would survive much better into the future, and with more of their integrity intact.
She was nevertheless by no means hostile to courageous liturgical experiment. Moreover, she did her utmost to encourage churches and cathedrals to commission innovative artists and artist-craftsmen in many fields: it was regarded, and still is, as an opportunity and a privilege to be invited on to the Council’s Register of Artists & Craftsmen which she established. She welcomed and encouraged the establishment of treasuries in a good number of cathedrals. She maintained excellent relationships with the Worshipful Company of Carpenters, for whom All Hallows’ London Wall was their ‘Guild Church’. She sat on committees for major exhibitions of church art including the epoch-making Victorian Church Art exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum. At the same time she was a significant figure in encouraging conservators to regard themselves as a profession and a discipline in their own right. The confidence with which she was regarded, by the Pilgrim Trust and other foundations, meant that there was a new and regular flow of charitable money to conserve such aspects of churches as their monuments, wall paintings, brasses, stained glass, textiles, organs, books and manuscripts, bells and bell frames. There seemed no limit to her interests, her energy and her ability to make others see the importance of churches and cathedrals as great repositories of treasures from throughout the ages to which it was also our duty to add a layer of beauty, interest and significance of the present day.
Her advice was sought by many organizations and individuals. She first attended a committee meeting of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, as an observer, on 17 September 1936. For many years thereafter she was an influential member of that committee and later a member of its august Council. She worked closely and in several contexts with its chairman, the Duke of Grafton, and with its long-time Secretary, Mrs Monica Dance.
In her retirement, following her return to reasonably good health, she was appointed a member of the Advisory Board for Redundant Churches which had the weighty responsibility of advising the Church Commissioners on the fate of churches which had been declared redundant under the Pastoral Measure 1968. Settled in north-east Scotland with her long-term companion Philippa Buckton, Judith became Secretary of the Banffshire Coast Conservation Society, aptly demonstrating that it possible to act locally as well as nationally. They converted a former railway station and cottages into a most attractive and imaginative home and guest wing, and moreover created a beautiful garden. When later on they came back to England and established a home in Wymondham, Judith became a very active member of the local community and a faithful member of the Parochial Church Council of Wymondham Abbey.
Service on other committees (but there were many) included the UK committee of the International Council on Monuments & Sites (ICOMOS), which advises the government on protection and management of World Heritage Sites, heritage tourism, and cognate matters; the Standing Joint Committee on Natural Stone; trusteeship of the Historic Churches Preservation Trust; Council of the National Trust for Scotland; Council of the Architectural Heritage Society of Scotland. The list seems endless, her energy and enthusiasm boundless.
For her part in protecting the treasures of the City of London churches and in finding solutions for them in the post-war period Judith was made a Churchill Fellow of Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri, USA. She encouraged and advised on the translocation of a badly damaged Wren church from the City of London to Fulton. She was made an OBE in June 1970.
A service of thanksgiving in Wymondham Abbey followed her funeral and was attended by a large congregation, from among her many friends old and young (for she never lost the capacity to make new friends and could identify with people of all ages and stations in life) and by representatives of many of the organizations which she had served so faithfully during her long and active lifetime. She exercised her ministry of encouragement and support to others until very close to the end. She died on 22 May 2011, aged 94.
It is difficult to do justice to her personal qualities which included great elegance of appearance, a strong ethical backbone to everything she did and said, and a gift for the telling and original phrase. ‘You strike me amidships’, she once memorably said, when crossed in argument by a high official of the Church Commissioners. She was unfailingly generous, kind and loving. She was also immensely appreciative of the staff at Robert Kett House, Wymondham, who cared for her in her declining months. She kept the faith in which she was brought up and had a deep spiritual life. The word ‘service’ really meant something to her, and she gave her energy and time freely to all who asked it of her.
She is survived by her niece, Susan Guillum Jeffery, and by a group of devoted friends ranging from remotest Scotland to South Africa.
PETER BURMAN
15 June 2011
In Celebration of Judith Dorothea Guillum Scott OBE FSA FSA Scot – an address given at Wymondham Abbey, Norfolk, on Friday 10 June 2011
Judith Dorothea Guillum Scott was known to us all in many different guises and in many different ways. In my case she began as my boss, became my greatest mentor, and for two-thirds of my life and about half of hers she was a very dear friend.
Her roll-call of fame will be a long one but today I want to call attention to just a few of the most important aspects. First and foremost she was an inspirational and long-term leader in what today we call the ‘heritage world’. Starting in the 1930s she became the personal assistant, later the deputy and much later the successor to Dr Francis Carolus Eeles, probably the foremost ecclesiologist of his day. In Dr Eeles’s office in the Victoria & Albert Museum he and Judith nurtured the relatively early days of what was at first called the ‘Central Council for the Care of Churches’, Church-of-England-wide, and which later – and in no small way thanks to Judith – became a statutory body, part of the law of the land.
Supporting that Central Council was a committee in every diocese called, at first by custom, and then later in legislation, the Diocesan Advisory Committee for the Care of Churches (DAC). To this day, every Anglican diocese in England has one of these committees. From the beginning their membership has tended to be very distinguished – think of John Piper, the painter, or John Betjeman, the poet, for example – and Judith herself belonged to at least three. More than that she had a kind of special ministry over them all, which lasted for decades, and she seemed to know many of the members personally. They wrote to her unceasingly for counsel and advice. Sir John Betjeman wrote to her on a regular basis and his letters to her invariably began with the words ‘My darling Judith’, and ended ‘with love and kisses from John B’. One of these letters to Judith is published in his collected letters, and shows clearly how he regarded her as a bastion against philistinism and as someone whose support for a campaign or a project was invaluable and to be trusted . The letter ends ‘PS This is you’ alongside a vivid portrait drawing of Judith looking at her most elegant, wearing a kind of toque.
But to go back again to the beginning, or close to the beginning, at the onset of the second World War Judith accompanied Dr and Mrs Eeles to Somerset – to Dunster – and from there they continued to provide inspiration for the ‘care of all the churches’ (to quote St Paul) . One exciting and highly responsible project was to establish places of secure storage for treasures from urban churches, and especially those of the City of London, and Judith was thrilled when the BBC made a radio programme about this noble and highly-necessary venture in 2005.
After the War was over there was much to do to combat the backlog of repairs and the rapidly changing nature of the Church of England’s ministry to its nationwide parishes. There were three pieces of legislation with which Judith had very much to do. Not wishing to be too technical, but I must mention their names at least. There was the Inspection of Churches Measure 1955, there was the Faculty Jurisdiction Measure 1964 and there was the Pastoral Measure 1968. The first of these, the Inspection of Churches Measure, was unbelievably forward-thinking for its time. It provided for the regular, quinquennial, inspection of every Anglican parish church by a suitably qualified professional, most commonly an architect. It made the Church of England the first-ever owner of buildings that were regularly checked for their condition, so that repairs could be carried out in a phased way and according to an order of priorities. This not only made for regular maintenance and proper repairs at the right time but enabled fund-raising to be carried out in a timely and effective way. And it was in the spirit of two of Judith’s greatest mentors, John Ruskin and William Morris, the latter with his inspiring advice to ‘stave off decay by daily care’. I was at William Morris’s Red House on Tuesday 7 June and the property manager confirmed to me that, even today, the National Trust has not fully adopted this principle of quinquennial inspection. So the Church of England is still in the lead, and this is in no small way thanks to Judith’s advocacy and example. Judith wrote the text for the first edition of a publication entitled A Guide to Church Inspection and Repair which was enormously influential in giving young architects the opportunity to cut their teeth on significant historic buildings, but within a structured framework which enabled their confidence and experience to grow.
The Faculty Jurisdiction Measure was the basis for much subsequent legislation and evolution of good practice governing the care and protection of churches which remained in use. The Pastoral Measure was the parallel legislation dealing with churches which, usually for good and understandable reasons, became superfluous to active pastoral requirements and for which some good and proper solution needed to be found. In the early years of her retirement, Judith became a member of the Advisory Board for Redundant Churches alongside such other eminentissimi as Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, Canon Basil Clarke and Dr Arnold Taylor, former Chief Inspector of Ancient Monuments, Judith flying down from Scotland to London for the regular monthly meetings.
I became Judith’s Assistant Secretary of the Council for the Care of Churches and the Cathedrals Advisory Committee some months before the Pastoral Measure came into operation on 1 April 1969. In preparation for this event we had many meetings with the Church Commissioners and at the first of these meetings I noticed that Judith was not a person to be trifled with and that, as a highly professional woman in what was then largely a man’s world, she could use her great skill and wisdom to be a most effective ambassador for the protection of the Church’s inheritance of fine buildings, noble furniture and works of art, and the whole culture of artefacts that goes with churches of all ages, shapes and sizes. The senior official in charge of these negotiations was an MP, and very difficult to persuade, and he and Judith were locked in verbal combat for most of the afternoon. After he had said something particularly philistine and combative Judith said to him ‘You strike me amidships!’ – she had a great gift for the telling and unexpected phrase - and then argued vigorously and effectively against what he had said. Eventually she decided that the meeting was becoming unproductive, and it was almost 6.00 p.m., and so she said quietly to me ‘Let’s go – I’ve had enough’. She rose with immense dignity, bowed courteously but briefly towards the chairman of the meeting, and sailed towards the door of the very large Board Room like a Spanish galleon in full sail. I gathered up her papers and scuttled after her with as much dignity as I could muster. When we reached the front door of the Church Commissioners’ magnificent headquarters, 1 Milbank, she turned to me and said with a twinkle ‘A gin and tonic I think, don’t you?’ And so off we went to St Stephen’s Tavern, frequented by Members of Parliament and the press, for the first of what was to be many visits to recover from difficult and challenging meetings.
I have mentioned William Morris. Judith was not only active in Church circles. She was for decades one of the most respected and influential members of the Main Committee of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, and later a revered member of its Council. We remembered her at the SPAB’s Board of Guardians on Tuesday 7 June, coupled with commemoration of someone who was for many years one of her greatest allies, Hugh, Duke of Grafton, former SPAB Chairman, who was almost her exact contemporary and who died about six weeks before Judith. At the SPAB she made many friends, but not least Monica Dance who – along with Judith herself – was one of the great post-War figures in the protection and preservation of historic buildings. On a good number of occasions Judith and I together visited Monica and Harry Dance in their retirement, at Methwold in Norfolk. The Duke of Grafton also chaired the UK Committee of ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments & Sites): Judith also served on this committee and was one of those that gave it credibility in the early days. Today that committee plays a crucial role in advising the UK Government on our World Heritage Sites, both how to manage those that are already on the World Heritage List and how to evaluate those sites that may become World Heritage Sites.
I have also mentioned Sir John Betjeman, Judith’s friend and ally in many shared preservation battles. He describes one of his poetic heroines as being ‘thrillingly stern and kind’, and I have often thought that this telling phrase could be equally apt for Judith. She did not suffer fools gladly, and she had a reputation for being formidable. I used to watch, fascinated, from the vantage point of my own office – which had walls of glass and was known as the ‘goldfish bowl’. Many distinguished people came to visit Judith in her office – Archbishops, Bishops, Deans of Anglican Cathedrals, Members of Parliament, leading figures in heritage preservation and the arts. Usually they came out looking radiant, and as though they had just been given some wonderfully wise counsel and advice – which was invariably the case – but sometimes, it is true, they came out looking somewhat chastened.
Judith was a natural academic, that is to say that she loved the activities of research and writing. She had not been given the opportunity of going to university. The reasons for this are not clear, but perhaps her early work for Dr Eeles based at the V & A were a kind of substitute. From him she learned to love Scottish antiquities as well as English antiquities. It was a delight always to visit Judith and Philippa Buckton in their Scottish retreat, following Judith’s retirement in 1971. Her retirement was earlier than it should have been, on account of a period of serious illness. But at Clochan-by-Buckie, in Banffshire, Judith and Philippa transformed a former railway station into a most delightful home – and ever a hospitable one – and they created there a most beautiful garden. Across the field was a late 18th century Roman Catholic church – standing all alone - in which Judith took a great deal of interest, and whose security and preservation she made one of her ‘causes’. She began a friendly correspondence with Mario Conti, then Bishop of Aberdeen and now Archbishop of Glasgow. She was always inclined to act ecumenically – it came naturally to her, and her friends included Roman Catholics, Quakers and Buddhists as well as Anglicans. All genuine spirituality appealed to her, and her prayer life was real and deep.
Her spirituality was connected with another great interest of hers, the encouragement of the young – particularly aspiring architects, surveyors, artists and craftsmen, archaeologists and art historians – and in particular the encouragement of creativity, in all its forms, in the service of the Church. This was an example that powerfully affected me personally, and I have always – but following in her footsteps – sought to practice, and to encourage, both ‘conservation’ and ‘creativity’. Judith exercised this particular aspect of her ministry through a wide circle of friendships – John Piper was devoted to her, as were Patrick Reyntiens and David Kindersley – but, in a more formalised manner, through her establishment at the Council for the Care of Churches of a Register of Artists & Craftsmen. This was superbly managed for her at that time by Basil Fairclough, a conservator of books and manuscripts, and enabled her to give authoritative advice and make imaginative recommendations to churches and cathedrals over many decades. In addition to advising English cathedrals officially, and sometimes Welsh and Scottish cathedrals unofficially, she wrote memorably persuasive reports and gave invaluable advice to the Anglican cathedrals in Jerusalem and Khartoum.
It is a sadness to me that she only ever wrote one published book, a history of the church and parish of St Mary Abbots Kensington. I treasure my copy. But perhaps this was in part because she was essentially a ‘doer’. As someone wrote about someone else in The Guardian recently she was ‘not just a human being but a human doer’.
To sum up: to me, as a friend of approaching half a century, Judith shines out first and foremost for her great gift of making friends and keeping them. (She was a great letter-writer, incidentally, and I delight in the large collection of them which I have kept). Secondly she shines out as a great professional in the field of historic buildings preservation, and especially of churches and cathedrals. She deployed her formidable knowledge, buttressed by her striking and memorable presence, in the service of many of Britain’s most notable historic buildings, and especially – but not only – of ecclesiastical ones. She played her part, and it was quite often a prominent part, in the gradual evolution of legislation and policy, both secular and ecclesiastical, which has made Britain one of the unquestioned leaders in the heritage world. She had a passion for the genuine and therefore for encouraging the arts and the skills of authentic craftsmanship. She also had a passion for wildlife, and so it is not surprising that the first edition of the Churchyards Handbook, which she wrote, contains sage advice about how to manage churchyards as havens of wildlife and natural beauty. Above all, we can venerate her memory and give thanks for her life as a woman of great wisdom. That wisdom was cherished by all and sundry, from some of the greatest in the land to the people whom Judith encountered as she went about her life, her dedicated life, in which she gave so much to others. We used to remark at All Hallows’ London Wall how remarkable it was that when we opened the front door of No 83, our official address, we might find on the doorstep a duke or a dustman. Once a Bishop came, shyly, from Liverpool Street Station, asking if he could have a button sewn back on his jacket before he went off to an important meeting at Lambeth Palace. Judith’s humanity irradiated the whole place, and her influence is palpable to this day. She showed us that a ‘workplace’ could also have some of the characteristics of a family home.
She leaves behind her a special kind of fragrance in our memories. She was elegant, upright and true. And, one way or another, she affected the lives of every single one of us here in Wymondham Abbey today. We give thanks to Judith for her friendship, her wisdom, her strength of character, her goodness, her boundless generosity, and her love.
PETER BURMAN
9 June 2011