Adrian Gilbert Scott

(b Hampstead, London, 6 Aug 1882; d Hampstead, 23 April 1963). Brother of (4) Giles Gilbert Scott. He was articled to Temple Moore with his brother, whom he assisted with several projects during their long careers. Adrian Gilbert was strongly dependent upon the development of his brother's architecture in his own work. He did, however, build up a practice of his own, which was almost exclusively concerned with buildings for the Roman Catholic Church in Britain. The principal exception to this is the Anglican cathedral (1918-38; destr.) in Cairo, a commission that came from contacts made in the Middle East following his service with the Royal Engineers at Gallipoli and in Palestine and Egypt. During World War II Scott was Deputy Controller of Military Aircraft Production, and he assisted his brother with the designs for rebuilding the bombed House of Commons. Several of his post-war churches were replacements of war-damaged buildings, such as St Leonard's Parish Church, Sussex, and St Alban's Church, Holborn, London. His design for simplifying and reducing in size Lutyens's project for the metropolitan cathedral in Liverpool remained mercifully unexecuted. A fine and characteristic work is the Roman Catholic church of Our Lady and St Joseph in Lansbury, Poplar, London, which has a massive tower over a centralized octagonal plan. Compared with the rest of the area, rebuilt as the Live Architecture Exhibition of the Festival of Britain in 1951, the design was conservative, but, owing to its solid construction and meticulous craftsmanship, this church weathered conspicuously better than its neighbours. In 1930 he designed his own house, Shepherd's Well, Frognal Way, Hampstead, London, in a Neo-Georgian manner.

Part of the Scott family

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