Description
Donated by Mr John Radford
Lady Nora Scott was the wife of the Honourable Sir John Scott. Sir John had been admitted as a barrister of the Inner Temple in 1865 and from 1874 served on the International Court of Appeal in Egypt. In 1882 he was appointed a puisne judge of the Bombay Court. However in 1890 he returned to Egypt as Judicial Adviser to the Khedive and held this post until 1898 when he was appointed Deputy Judge Advocate General to H.M. Forces.
- 3 manuscript diary entries from the journal for December 1884 and June 1886. 140ff. +20ff in John Scott’s hand.
- Mixture of manuscript and transcript diary entries between November 1887 and June 1889.The journal covers the period 1884-1889 but includes a short preface and epilogue. Lady Scott explains that she did not immediately go out with her husband to Bombay as it had been decided she should spend the first winter in England with their five young children whom they were to leave behind with relatives. In 1883 her husband took advantage of the High Court’s vacation to join her in Alexandria for the last part of her journey to Bombay. In 1890 the Government of India agreed to loan Mr Scott’s services to the Government of Egypt, initially for a year, and she writes ‘so the old saying came true for us – “If you drink the water of the Nile, you must return to it”‘.The journal gives a full account of the routines of daily life and social events in Bombay and the surrounding countryside against the background of developments in the Court.About a fifth of the manuscript has been published under the editorship of Mr Radford as: An Indian Journal. By Nora Scott. London: The Radcliffe Press, 1994. [Archive MISC.131]
