Philippa Scott

Felicity Philippa, Lady Scott (22 November 1918 – 5 January 2010) was a British wildlife conservationist.

Born in Bloemfontein, South Africa, Scott moved to England, and worked in the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park during World War II.¹

In 1951, she married Peter Scott, naturalist and founder of the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT), in Reykjavík, Iceland, after an expedition to ring pink-footed geese.² A daughter, Dafila, was born later that year (dafila is the old scientific name for a pintail).³ A son, Falcon, was born in 1954.⁴

Lady Scott died, aged 91, in Slimbridge, Gloucestershire.⁵

Scott was honorary director of the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, founded in 1948 by Sir Peter. She had a keen interest in nature and the environment and wrote numerous books about her travels from the Arctic to the Antarctic.⁶

Scott was also a professional wildlife photographer, president of the Nature in Art Trust,⁷ scuba diver⁸ and an associate of the Royal Photographic Society.

• The Art of Peter Scott (completely revised in 2008)
• Lucky Me (autobiographical)
• So Many Sunlit Hours (autobiographical)

The fish Scotts' wrasse (Cirrhilabrus scottorum) was named after Scott and her husband for their “great contribution in nature conservation".⁹

Scott sat for a portrait head in clay by Jon Edgar at her home in Slimbridge in February 2007 as part of the sculptor's Environment Series¹⁰ of heads. A bronze was unveiled at the WWT Slimbridge visitor centre on 6 December 2011.

• "The Scott partnership put conservation on the map, at a time when conservation was not a word that most people understood." – Sir David Attenborough¹¹