Head-and-shoulders classical-style plaster bust on a round socle, showing the sitter in old age, his balding head bowed slightly forward and looking down, a robe loosely round his shoulders exposing a little of the right chest, the end falling over his left shoulder.

Scott was a naval chaplain from 1793 and saw a great deal of service in the Mediterranean and the West Indies early in the French Revolutionary War. He was an accomplished linguist and Nelson, who first encountered him in the Mediterranean in the 1790s, asked for his services at the time of the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801, when Scott was chaplain to Sir Hyde Parker. However, when it seemed likely that the Peace of Amiens would be short and Nelson anticipated being appointed to a foreign station on the return of war, he asked Scott to become his chaplain and secretary for foreign correspondence. He therefore joined Nelson in the 'Victory' during his tenure of Mediterranean command and remained constantly with him from 1803 to Trafalgar in 1805, when he attended the dying admiral. He then accompanied his body back to England and continued to watch over it until Nelson's funeral and burial in St Paul's Cathedral in January 1806.

Scott received a doctorate of divinity from Cambridge University in 1806 (by royal mandate) for his varied and able secretarial and diplomatic service under Nelson, but no other public reward.

He remained vicar of Southminster to his death, initially on a very limited income, but his circumstances improved in 1816 when he was granted the additional living of Catterick in Yorkshire. He thereafter mostly lived at Catterick, where he died. This bust is thought to be a cast from an original in marble, probably still in family possession, and presumed to have been made about the time of Scott's death. It was presented in June 1951 by his great-grandson, Col. W. Mackenzie-Smith DSO.