George Irving Scott-Moncrieff (9 April 1910 – 11 March 1974) was a Scottish novelist, playwright, poet, journalist, editor, and author of several well-known books on Scotland.
After her death at the age of 29, he moved to the Isle of Eigg in 1945 and lived there a hermit-like existence in a simple cottage for about five years.
[1] The defence of tradition runs through all of Scott-Moncrieff's writings – his books about Scottish architecture and religion, his plays, his novels, his poems, his very popular and often reprinted history of the Catholic Church in Scotland, his many book reviews, his moving little volume of religious meditations.
[4] In a facetious reference to Balmoral Castle, Scott-Moncrieff coined the term "Balmorality" to criticize both Scotland's cultural accommodation since the Jacobite risings with both the House of Hanover and the British Empire and the superficial idealization of Highland Scottish culture begun by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.
[5] In 1951, he wrote Living Traditions of Scotland, a booklet published on behalf of the Council of Industrial Design Scottish Committee to accompany the Living Traditions exhibition of architecture and crafts held in Edinburgh as part of the Festival of Britain.