Rash's Surname Index
Notes for Edgar Thompson SCOTT
Philadelphia Daily News (PA) - May 27, 1995
Deceased Name: EDGAR SCOTT DIES AT 96 RAILROAD HEIR WAS A MAIN LINE LEGEND
Edgar Scott was a man of money and prestige.
Heir to the Pennsylvania Railroad fortune, Scott studied at Groton School and Harvard and went on to co-found the largest brokerage firm in Philadelphia, Janney Montgomery Scott Inc. But his greatest loves were not money and prestige, but his wife and the arts.
Hope Montgomery Scott was an elegant Main Line socialite and famous equestrian. She dined with Winston Churchill on Greek billionaire Aristotle Onassis' yacht and was portrayed by Katharine Hepburn in "The Philadelphia Story" and by Grace Kelly in "High Society."
She died in January at 90; Edgar Scott died yesterday of pneumonia. He was 96.
"Nobody expected him to last very long after Hope passed away," said family friend Richard E. McDevitt, of Malvern. "They were so close. In fact, I was amazed that he lasted this long . . . I've never seen a closer couple."
Scott adored his wife and always let her take the spotlight, said his granddaughter, Janny Scott, 39, a New York Times reporter.
"It was a match of a very action-oriented woman and a rather cerebral, charming, literary man."
Scott loved books and could recite vast passages of Shakespeare. Before becoming a stockbroker, he tried writing and playwriting. He never talked about finance at home, Janny Scott said. "He talked about books and poetry and other aspects of life."
Scott was born in the American Embassy in Paris in 1899, the son of Edgar and Mary Howard Sturgis Scott. He interrupted studies at Harvard to serve as a volunteer ambulance driver in France during World War I.
He returned to school to study playwriting and served twice as the president of the Harvard Lampoon. His name is engraved on the president's chair, Janny Scott said. After college, he worked as a newspaper reporter and tried to write plays before co-founding a brokerage firm in 1929.
He married Helen Hope Montgomery in 1923. Living in a mansion in Villanova, they had two children, Robert Montgomery Scott, president of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Edgar Scott Jr., retired chairman of Janney Montgomery Scott. They had five grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.
Throughout his life he held leadership positions in financial and art worlds, including governor of the New York Stock Exchange and dean of the Shakespere Society of Philadelphia. He took time in 1950 to write a book about finance for women titled, "How to lay a Nest Egg: Financial Facts of Life for the American Girl."
Edgar and Hope Scott "brought class wherever they went," said Leonard Tose, former owner of the Eagles and a longtime neighbor.
They didn't have a snobbish bone in their bodies, said Mary Ann M. Melchiorre, an executive at Janney Montgomery Scott. "They said hello to everybody and they remembered workers . . . Money didn't make them snobs.
"Those kinds of people are not being replaced. They cared about people they were very down to earth. An era is gone."
Edgar Scott never was cross or annoyed, McDevitt said. He was always gracious and charming.
"He could rise at anyone's table and give the appropriate toast. He was the perfect Philadelphia gentleman."
Services will be at 3 p.m. Wednesday in the chapel of St. David's Church, Wayne.
Copyright (c) 1995 Philadelphia Daily News
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