George Gilbert Scott was born on 13 July 1811 at Gawcott, Buckinghamshire where his father the Rev Thomas Scott was curate; his mother Euphemia Lynch was born in Antigua, and her mother's family were Gilberts. He was educated, or rather self-taught, at home, but received instruction in drawing from a Mr Jones. At the age of fourteen he went for a year to his uncle Samuel King at Latimer who taught him both architecture and mathematics. He was then articled to James Edmeston of Bishopsgate, London, a dissenting architect recommended to his father by 'the travelling agent to the Bible Society'. Edmeston had a good library and Scott took classes with George Maddox. About 1829 Scott was joined at Edmeston's by William Bonython Moffatt, a joiner from Cornwall who also took classes at Maddox's. At Maddox's Scott met Samuel Morton Peto of the contractors Grissel & Peto, and joined him in an unpaid capacity in 1831 to learn construction and pricing. A year later, in 1832, he obtained a place with Henry Roberts and at Christmas 1834 he took an office in Carlton Chambers, Regent Street to help an architect friend Sampson Kempthorne with workhouses. Early in 1835 Scott's father died and he set up practice on his own, initially specialising in workhouses, assisted by Moffatt who was taken into formal partnership in 1838. In the same year he married Caroline Oldrid.
Scott built his first church in 1838. His reputation was established when he won the competition for the Martyrs' Monument at Oxford in 1840, and still more when he designed the large St Giles Camberwell in best Camden Society Gothic in 1842-44. In 1844 Scott made his first continental tour, and in the following year, 1845, he won the competition for the Nikolaikirche in Hamburg. In that same year Caroline Scott broke off the partnership with Moffatt, who had become extravagant and unreliable, Scott thereafter largely abandoning the workhouse side of the practice to concentrate on church building, gaining the commission for St John's Cathedral Newfoundland in 1846. His Scottish practice began in 1853 when Alexander Penrose Forbes, Bishop of Brechin, commissioned him to design St Paul's Church at Dundee, a continental hall church with a 220-foot spire and an apse.
In 1855 Scott won the competition for the Hamburg Rathaus and his successes in the Whitehall competitions of 1856 established his reputation for large public buildings leading to the commission without competition for the Albert Institute at Dundee and the University of Glasgow, both in 1864. St Mary's Church in Glasgow followed, again without competition, in 1870 but he had to compete for St Mary's Cathedral in Edinburgh, the commission for which was received in 1873. By that date his health had been affected by a slight stroke and family bereavements; his son George Gilbert Scott Junior having set up his own practice in 1863, he was largely assisted by his second son John Oldrid Scott, born 1841 and articled to his father in 1860, and in Scotland by two very able clerks of works, William Conradi in Glasgow and Edwin Morgan in Edinburgh. Nevertheless St Mary's was a remarkable design which reflected the immense increase in his scholarship associated with his Royal Academy lectures from 1868 onwards, published after his death in 1879.
Scott was admitted FRIBA on 3 December 1849, his proposers being Henry Roberts, Thomas Bellamy and Thomas Henry Wyatt. In 1851 he was largely responsible for the establishment of the London Architectural Museum. He was elected ARA in 1855 and RA in 1860, having been awarded the RIBA's Royal Gold Medal in the previous year. He was knighted in 1872 and was President of the RIBA 1873-76. Although in fragile health Scott remained firmly in charge of the practice until his sudden death from a heart attack on 27 March 1878.
Scott's practice was inherited by John Oldrid Scott who was admitted FRIBA on 2 December 1878, his proposers being Charles Barry Junior, George Edmund Street and Benjamin Ferrey. His nomination paper describes him as having commenced practice in 1864, i.e. at the end of his articles, although he had no formal partnership and had become principal assistant only by the later 1860s. He completed his father's Scottish projects, modifying the design of the spire at the University of Glasgow and acting as consultant for new buildings at the university until 1901. He died on 30 May 1913.
In his later years John Oldrid Scott was assisted by Charles Marriot Oldrid Scott, born 1880, and articled to Reginald Theodore Blomfield 1898-1902; he returned to his father's practice in 1902-3, but obtained a place with George Frederick Bodley to widen his experience in 1903 before returning to his father's office as partner in 1904. He completed the spires of St Mary's Cathedral but, like his father, obtained no new Scottish commissions. He either did not attempt or did not pass the qualifying exam and was admitted LRIBA in the mass intake of 20 July 1911, his proposers being George Luard Alexander, a colleague at Bodley's, Richard John Tyndall (both of whom had recently passed the qualifying exam and had been admitted ARIBA) and an elderly former assistant of his grandfather's, Charles Robert Baker King.
Charles Marriot Oldrid Scott died in 1952.