Scott, Agnes Mary (Davis)

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: Sandra Gwyn, “SCOTT, AGNES MARY (Davis),” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 15, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/scott_agnes_mary_15E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Journalist; b. 12 Dec. 1863 in Quebec City, daughter of Allan John Scott and Margaret Cathleen Teresa Heron; m. 29 April 1903 William Patrick Davis in Ottawa, and they had two daughters; d. 19 Nov. 1927 in Paris, France.
    • As a society reporter in turn-of-the-century Ottawa, Agnes Scott described vice-regal and political society with much the same flair and sense of irony displayed by contemporary writer Sara Jeannette Duncan. Scott’s witty, well-informed, and often surprisingly daring columns reveal much about the social texture of the capital during the heady early years of Wilfrid Laurier’s prime ministership.
    • Scott herself was an integral part of that society. Her father was the youngest brother of the patriarchal Richard William Scott, Laurier’s secretary of state; her mother was a sister of Scott’s wife. Yet she was also an outsider. Her father had died young, in 1868, and Agnes grew up in an ambience of shabby gentility in Ottawa’s Sandy Hill district, in a ramshackle house that lacked a bathroom and a furnace. A year or so after her mother’s death in 1898, she moved in with her uncle. She had the misfortune to be plain looking, though her connections and wit were enough to win her a coveted place in the inner circle of Rideau Hall. The increasing popularity of society reporting, and the opening up of journalism to women, made it possible for her to earn a modest living through writing. Although not professionally ambitious, she supported most of the ideals of the independent “new woman” of the 1890s.
    • For six years she provided sparkling social reportage, seldom equalled in Canada. Although her columns provoked much comment and occasionally outrage, she was always invited back, a pattern which suggests that Ottawa in those days was a more sophisticated capital than is generally supposed. Her career ended abruptly in 1903 when she married Will Davis, a secretary some years her junior, son of a wealthy Ottawa contractor, and a playboy. Though their families had much in common – Irish, Catholic, and Liberal – there is much to suggest that their marriage was one of convenience. It was certainly unsuccessful. They built a fine house in Sandy Hill and had property in the Thousand Islands; Agnes entertained and found time to research and write papers for the Women’s Canadian Historical Society of Ottawa.
  • Great Granddaughter of United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=5351
  • Find a Grave: Cannot locate