In Darlington North Cemetery is the Commonwealth War Grave of:

W.A. Scott
Stoker 1st Class R.N.
R/KX 162732
H.M.S. George Bligh
11th May 1945  age 32

beside the grave is a memorial vase which reads:

Alice Scott
1913 – 2002

William Adam Scott was born on 6th September 1912 in Darlington.  He was the first child of married couple Adam Scott, originally from Aberdeen, and Mary Jane (nee Nicholson).  They had another four children Helen (b.1914), John (b.1916), Joseph (b.1919) and Margaret (b.1921) and in 1921 were living at 6 Peaceful Valley, off Chestnut Street in Darlington. Adam was a builder’s plasterer working for Thomas Boyle.

In the summer of 1939 William, a plasterer and cement worker, married local girl Alice Birdsall and the 1939 Register shows them living at 4 Barningham Street.

Like his father before him William joined the Royal Navy, becoming a Stoker 1st Class.  His last posting was on the H.M.S. George Bligh which had been requisitioned by the Admiralty and converted to a Boom Defence Vessel (Pennant number Z178). The primary function of a Boom Defence Vessel was to lay and maintain steel anti-torpedo or anti-submarine nets, which from January 1942 it was doing around Scapa Flow, in the Orkney Islands.

Stoker Scott’s death on 11th May 1945 was registered at Darlington, so he was home on leave, ill or injured.

William Adam Scott is remembered at Darlington on D40.035 and on our List of Ships’ Crews.