Editing Giles Gilbert Scott (section)

===Early years===
Born in [[Hampstead]], London, Scott was one of six children and the third son of [[George Gilbert Scott Jr.]] and his wife, Ellen King Samson.<ref name="archive">Butler, A. S. G. [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/olddnb/35987 "Scott, Sir Giles Gilbert"], Dictionary of National Biography Archive, Oxford University Press, accessed 22 June 2012 {{subscription required}}</ref> His father was an architect who had co-founded the architecture and interior design company [[Watts & Co.]] in 1874.<ref name="archive"/> His paternal grandfather was [[George Gilbert Scott|Sir (George) Gilbert Scott]], a more famous architect, known for designing the [[Albert Memorial]] and the [[Midland Grand Hotel]] at [[St Pancras railway station|St Pancras Station]].<ref>Stamp, Gavin. [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/24869 "Scott, Sir George Gilbert (1811–1878)"], ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University press, accessed 21 June 2012 {{subscription required}}</ref>

When Scott was three, his father was declared to be of unsound mind and was temporarily confined to the [[Bethlem Royal Hospital]]. Consequently, his sons saw little of him. Giles later said that he remembered seeing his father only twice. A bequest from an uncle in 1889 gave the young Scott ownership of Hollis Street Farm, near [[Ninfield]], Sussex, with a life tenancy to his mother.<ref name="dnb">Stamp, Gavin. [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/35987 "Scott, Sir Giles Gilbert (1880–1960)"], ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, accessed 21 June 2012 {{subscription required}}</ref> During the week Ellen Scott and her three sons lived in a flat in [[Battersea]], spending weekends and holidays at the farm.<ref name="scott3">Scott, p. 3</ref> She regularly took them on cycling trips to sketch buildings in the area, and encouraged them to take an interest in architecture.<ref name="thomas">Thomas, John. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/40033841 "The 'Beginnings of a Noble Pile': Liverpool Cathedral's Lady Chapel (1904–10)"], ''Architectural History'', Vol. 48, (2005), pp. 257–290</ref> Among the buildings the young Scott drew were [[Battle Abbey]], Brede Place and [[Etchingham#The church|Etchingham Church]]; Scott's son, [[Richard Gilbert Scott]], suggests that the last, with its solid central tower, "was perhaps the germ of Liverpool Cathedral".<ref name="scott3"/>

Scott and his brothers were raised as Roman Catholics; their father was a Catholic convert. Giles attended [[Beaumont College]] on the recommendation of his father who admired the buildings of its preparatory school, the work of [[John Francis Bentley|J. F. Bentley]].<ref>Scott, pp. 1–2</ref> In January 1899 Scott became an articled pupil in the office of [[Temple Lushington Moore|Temple Moore]], who had studied with Scott's father.{{#tag:ref|Scott's younger brother Adrian became a pupil of Moore at the same time. Their elder brother Sebastian chose a medical career, and became, in Richard Gilbert's Scott's phrase, an eminent radiologist,<ref>Scott, p. 2</ref> head of the radiology department of the [[London Hospital]] from 1909 to 1930.<ref>[http://www.aim25.ac.uk/cgi-bin/vcdf/detail?coll_id=3922&inst_id=23&nv1=search&nv2= "Radiology Department of the London Hospital"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130513150009/http://www.aim25.ac.uk/cgi-bin/vcdf/detail?coll_id=3922&inst_id=23&nv1=search&nv2= |date=13 May 2013 }}, Archives in London, accessed 24 June 2010</ref>|group=n}} From Moore, or Ellen Scott, or from his father's former assistant P. B. Freeman, Scott got to know the work of his father.<ref name="thomas"/> In a 2005 study of Scott's work, John Thomas observes that Scott senior's "important church of St Agnes, [[Kennington]] (1874–77; 1880s–93) clearly influenced Giles's early work, including [[Lady Chapel of Liverpool Cathedral|Liverpool Cathedral Lady Chapel]]."<ref name="thomas"/>

In later years Scott remarked to [[John Betjeman]], "I always think that my father was a genius. … He was a far better architect than my grandfather and yet look at the reputations of the two men!"<ref name="dnb"/>{{#tag:ref|Some of Scott's contemporaries shared his view of the relative merits of his father and grandfather. In 1950 a profile of Scott in ''[[The Observer]]'' called [[George Gilbert Scott, Jr.]] a much better architect than his more famous father.<ref>"Profile – Giles Gilbert Scott", ''The Observer'', 29 October 1950, p. 2</ref> In 1960 ''[[The Guardian]]'' called the eldest Scott "the archaeological 'renovator' to whose devastating energy so many of our cathedrals bear unhappy witness, while [George Gilbert Scott Jr.] was an architect of some discrimination and taste".<ref name="mg">"Sir Giles Gilbert Scott", ''The Guardian'', 10 February 1960, p. 2</ref>|group= n}} Scott's father and his grandfather had been exponents of [[High Victorian Gothic]]; Scott, when still a young man, saw the possibility of designing in Gothic without the profusion of detail that marked their work.<ref name="archive"/> He had an unusually free hand in working out his ideas, as Moore generally worked at home, leaving Freeman to run the office.<ref name="dnb"/>