He was eldest of the twelve children of John Skatergood of Chaddesden, Derbyshire, by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Francis Baker, yeoman, of Ellastone, a village in North Staffordshire.
In 1664 Scattergood received the prebend of Sawley in Lichfield Cathedral, to which the treasurership of the cathedral was attached; he became chaplain to Bishop John Hacket On 16 August 1666 he received another Lichfield prebend, that of Pipa Minor, and in 1669 the living of Yelvertoft, near Winwick, which he continued to hold with Winwick.
White Kennett, while bishop of Peterborough, purchased in 1724–5 Scattergood's ‘choice collection of books’ from Mr. Smith, bookseller, of Daventry.
He contributed Latin verses to the university collections in honour respectively of the Duke of York in 1633, of the Princess Elizabeth in 1635, and of Charles I, on the birth of his fifth child, in 1637.
Meanwhile, he joined with John Pearson, the latter's brother Richard, and Francis Gouldman, in compiling a collection of biblical criticism which was intended to supplement Brian Walton's Polyglot Bible.
‘XLVII Sermons by Antony Farindon.’ He was long occupied in a revision of Schrevelius's Greek lexicon, first published in 1645, and he prepared a new edition (adding 5000 words) of Thomas's Latin dictionary in 1678.
He is further credited with having brought up to a total of 33,145 the number of references to parallel passages in a folio edition of the Bible issued at Cambridge in 1678 by the university printer, J. Hayes.