F. R. Scott

His father was Frederick George Scott, "an Anglican priest, minor poet and staunch advocate of the civilizing tradition of imperial Britain, who instilled in his son a commitment to serve mankind, a love for the regenerative balance of the Laurentian landscape and a firm respect for the social order.

While at McGill, Scott became a member of the Montreal Group of modernist poets, a circle that also included Leon Edel, John Glassco, and A. J. M.

[1] In March 1942 Scott co-founded a literary magazine, Preview, with the Montreal poet Patrick Anderson.

Like the earlier Montreal Group publications, "Preview's orientation was cosmopolitan; its members looked largely towards the English poets of the 1930s for inspiration.

[1] In 1952, he served as a United Nations technical assistance resident representative in Burma to help build a socialist state in that country.

[1] During the 1950s, Scott was an active opponent of the Maurice Duplessis regime in Quebec and went to court to fight the Padlock Law.

Scott began translating French-Canadian poetry and published Anne Hébert and Saint-Denys Garneau in 1962.

Although he declined the appointment, he supported Trudeau's imposition of the War Measures Act during the October Crisis same year.