(Portrait on left is of Charles at the Law Society of Ontario, 1946)

Charles Scott's roots are deep in the Ottawa Valley. His great-grandfather, Francis Scott, and great grand-mother (née Mary Ann Kennedy), both of whom were born in the north of Ireland, lived in Bell's Corners at the time of the 1851 census. After her husband's early death in 1854, his great-grandmother Scott moved the family to Ottawa, where her son, Francis Albert Scott, went into the grocery business, at one time owning three retail stores in Ottawa and conducting a wholesale business up and down the Valley. His grandmother (née Elmira Bump Nye), whose family was originally from Kent and emigrated to the Massachusetts Colony (arriving in 1637), came to Ottawa from New York. From the Nye family's business association with John Charles Frémont (Union General and the first American Governor of California –who named the "Golden Gate") came the name that extended through four generations in the Scott family. His father, the first Charles Frémont Scott, continued the family grocery business in Ottawa until 1941. His mother's family (Blake), of Irish descent, were in the Ottawa area in the 1860s.

He was educated in the public schools and Lisgar Collegiate in Ottawa and studied law at the University of Toronto, graduating in 1943. After articling with the Mason, Foulds firm in Toronto, he returned to Ottawa, initially practising with McIlraith, McIlraith & Scott and subsequently with Gowling McTavish Osborne & Henderson (now Gowlings). His field of specialty was corporate/commercial law, with a strong interest in medical and non-profit organizations. He became General Counsel to the Canadian Medical Protective Association, to the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons (Canada) and the Medical Council of Canada, as well as numerous corporations and other organization. He was a founding member and Secretary of the board that conceived and built the Fathers of Confederation Memorial in Charlottetown, PEI, Canada's only national monument to the Fathers of Confederation.

His family was among those that established Dominion Methodist Church in Ottawa in the 1860s and he was Chair of the Board of Trustees of Dominion (later Dominion-Chalmers) United Church. He was also a legal advisor to the Salvation Army in Ottawa for many years and was later on the Board of the Rideau Canal Museum and President of the Ottawa Historical Board.

His involvement with the Heraldry Society of Canada started as a retainer to prepare their initial organizational documents at the request of Hon. Alex Cattenach.

Mr. Scott retired in 1988 and he resides in Ottawa with his wife Pauline. They have three sons, seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. They summer on Big Rideau Lake.

Honours and awards

• 1979 Honorary Fellow of the Royal Heraldry Society of Canada
• 1979 Honorary fellowship Queen's Counsel