Sir Peter Markham Scott, C.H, C.B.E, D.S.C, F.R.S (1909-1989)

• School House 1922-27

 

Only son of Antarctic explorer Captain Robert Falcon Scott, Peter Markham Scott was an ornithologist, conservationist, championship-class skater, dinghy-racer and glider pilot, as well as an accomplished painter.

After leaving Oundle in 1927 Peter went on to graduate from Trinity College, Cambridge in 1931 and, having inherited his artistic talent from his mother, Kathleen, held his first exhibition in London in 1933.

As a teenager Peter was under pressure to train seriously as a skater with his mentors believing that no less than an Olympic Gold was assured. This was, however, only if he would agree to abandon all other endeavours in an enforced singleness of purpose that was not his style. Inevitably the price for skating fame was too dear and the ice rink remained what it had always been – a 'fun thing' at which, like a lot of other things, he happened to excel. 

The same could be said for the dinghies – the International Fourteens. This was a competitive class with thoroughbred boats in which the feel of things and reactions to natural observation paid immediate dividends. He was immensely successful, and inventive – developing, with John Winter, the light wooden centreboard and the trapeze in the Thirties. Such secret weapons heaped success on success - in 1936 he represented the United Kingdom at sailing in the Olympic Games.

Peter went on to win the British Gliding Championships within a year of becoming interested in flying, relishing the thermals over cities and cornfield that offered a closer understanding of bird flight. Meanwhile his wife became a thermal widow while the sailplane fervour was at its height - her task was to take the trailer to every conceivable corner of Britain when the day's lift had died.

In 1948 Peter founded the organisation with which he was ever afterwards closely associated, the Severn Wildfowl Trust (now the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust) with its headquarters at Slimbridge in Gloucestershire. In the years that followed he led several ornithological expeditions worldwide and became a television personality, popularising the subject of wildfowl and wetlands. He wrote and illustrated several books on the subject, including his autobiography, The Eye of the Wind (1961).

In 1961 Peter also co-founded the World Wildlife Fund and designed its now famous panda logo and, from 1973-1983, was Chancellor of Birmingham University.

Peter is also remembered for giving the scientific name of Nessiteras rhombopteryx to the Loch Ness Monster so that it could be registered as an endangered species. The name, based on Greek, means 'the wonder of Ness with the diamond-shaped fin' but is also an anagram of 'Monster hoax by Sir Peter S'.

In June 2004, Scott and Sir David Attenborough were jointly profiled in the second of a three part BBC 2 series, The Way We Went Wild, about television wildlife presenters – leaving no doubt that Peter fulfilled the ambitions that his father set for him in his last diary:  'Get the boy interested in natural historyit is better than games.'