William Scott was born in 1848 and was articled to an architect [name unknown] in London, England and passed the Royal Institute of British Architects Voluntary Exam in 1870. He was awarded the RIBA Silver Medal for Drawing in 1875 and was elected an Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects (ARIBA) in 1877, his proposers being Charles Barry, G.E. Street, and John Whichcord. He was also awarded the Soane Medallion in 1877. In the 1870s Scott was awarded the Royal Academy Travelling Studentship. This may having given him a taste for foreign travel. He lived in Italy for much of the 1880s and 1890s. He was in Rome in 1882, Venice in 1884 and Bordighera, Italy in 1896. Whilst in Venice in the early 1880s he met and became friends with James McNeill Whistler.
Having trained as architect it is not known if he designed any buildings. In the 1880s he seems to have switched his interests to painting, etching and engraving. Between 1880 and 1897 he exhibited at the Royal Academy, Royal Institute of Oil Painters, Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers and the Royal Society of British Artists in London; Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts; Royal Birmingham Society of Artists; and Manchester City Art Gallery.
Scott wrote and illustrated at least two books published by A. & C. Black: The Riviera (1897) and Rock villages of the Riviera (1898). He died at Villa Les Cyeas, Cannes, France on 18 April 1918
Directory of British Architects 1834-1914. Compiled by Antonia Brodie, et al. Volume 2: L-Z. London; New York: British Architectural Library, Royal Institute of British Architects/Continuum, 2001
'Obituary'. The Builder vol. 114, 10 May 1918 p. 290