John Scott

'As rich as Scott,' was a popular proverb of eighteenth century polite society. A celebrated gambler, Scott's skill and phenomenal luck gained him a £500,000 fortune according to Horace Walpole, the diarist of the day. Giving the appearance of a bluff soldier, 'Pawkey' Scott, as his friends called him, simply fleeced them.

Scott rose rapidly in the Guards. In fourteen years he was a major-general at 45. But it was gaming and politics which seemed to have attracted him. He entered parliament in 1754, for Caithness, where his mother's relations had considerable interests. Scott's outright bribery in electioneering was condemned by a court of session in 1759, but it had no effect. Scott was still wheeling and dealing in parliament up until his death in 177 5. By then, his gaming skill had allowed him to buy a large Scottish estate. A friend wrote at Scott's death: General Scott is dead ... The waiters are to have crepes round their arms and the dice to be black and the spots white, during the time of wearing weepers, and the dice box muffled.

Scott's £500,000 fortune was the equivalent of about 0.28% of the £175m net national income. Today that would be around £3.1bn.