Talk:Percy Scott

Barontecy

There are many Baronets of the United Kingdom, it seems more helpful to me to give the actual name of his Baronetcy (and indeed the standard for articles on Baronets is generally to include Sir and nth Baronet in the article title). It may also be worth getting input from Wikipedia:WikiProject Baronetcies on this. David Underdown (talk) 08:54, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Dreyer vs. Pollen

Please can we have an informed, polite debate about this? Words like 'slander' are not helpful. If a Royal Commission found that Dreyer plagiarised Pollen's work, as stated in the article on Arthur Pollen, that should be good enough for Wikipedia. David, presumably you would be able to dig out the Commission's report and cite it? Philip Trueman (talk) 11:06, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

I've had a brief look, the catalogue records certainly confirm that a claim was made http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/search/search_results.aspx?&st=a&queryText=%22Royal+Commission+on+Awards+to+Inventors%22++Pollen+&queryType=ALL&dateFrom=1920&dateTo=1930 for search results (though both Dreyer and Pollen appear listed in the claimants list for some of these). The ODNB article on Pollen refers to Parliamentary papers for the details of the claim, which wouldn't be at Kew. David Underdown (talk) 12:09, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Pollen made two major claims - one which was dismissed straight away in 1922 if memory serves, and one which resulted in an award being made to Pollen in 1926. The Arthur Pollen was started by someone who read Pollen's son's apologia The Great Gunnery Scandal which was dismissed when it was published as being full of inaccuracies before even getting the gunnery aspects of A.J.H. Pollen's life. Presumably anyone actually interested in the subject can pay 20 pounds and buy Dreadnought Gunnery at the Battle of Jutland by John Brooks, which cites at length from the proceedings of the R.C.A.I. in relation to the Pollen case. The Claims files and the minutes of proceedings are in the P.R.O. apparently. --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 15:12, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Claims files etc are what I've linked to above. I'm now happy to accept the removal, but the use of terms like "slander" really wasn't helpful for a good faith edit. (see also some additional discussion under a similar title on Harlsbottom's user talk). David Underdown (talk) 15:27, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

"Tell the truth about Dreyer" wasn't helpful either, since to anyone who knows anything about the subject it isn't the truth. The proceedings are under T.173/547 parts 1-19. --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 15:33, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Possibly, but it's also easy to see (as this discussion demonstrates) why someone coming across Pollen first might think it was the case. More explanation up front, and avoiding terms which mcould be taken as personal attacks would have got this resolved more easily. David Underdown (talk) 15:42, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Gazette search results

London Gazette entries:

• Percy Moreton Scott]
• Percy M. Scott David Underdown (talk) 14:10, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

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Sources

I've had the following comment on my Talk Page which raises important issues and should more appropriately be discussed here:Stephen Kirrage ^{talk - contribs} 10:22, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Whilst I respect the amount of work you're putting in to the Scott article, his memoirs are, to put it mildly, self-serving. And it comes across rather alot in the article as it now stands, the formula being "Scott did this, but everyone else said that" etc. It doesn't help that Peter Padfield's biography is just a rather poor re-hash of the memoirs and basically rubber stamps everything Scott writes. Andrew Lambert's Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry is far more even-handed, but still fails on a detail level in places. All I would suggest is don't go overboard using his memoirs when sooner or later many of his contentions will be directly contradicted. —Simon Harley (Talk

— Library). 17:09, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

I accept much of the above. However, Scott was clearly a bit of a character who had important ideas, a skill at improvising solutions, and an energy to see things through. This was clearly highly valued but he also seemed completely to lack political skills which did nothing for his relationships with his superiors resulting in an on/off love/hate relationship. I determined therefore that a fuller article than the one that existed was appropriate (and would be interesting) but that left me with the problem of sources. Scott's autobiography could indeed be described as self serving, certainly the tone of it for the most part is pretty much so. However, I haven't so far been able to find much else so I've used this source, trying to extract facts (he did go to so and so, he did install such and such equipment, it had a demonstrable effect, it got general acceptance but did take a long time etc.) while eliminating the polemic. I may not have succeeded entirely in this and I accept that the article is currently imbalanced in terms of an unhealthy reliance on one source (I'll put in a {{one source}} tag) but you have to start somewhere....Stephen Kirrage ^{talk - contribs} 10:22, 22 November 2012 (UTC)