Harriet Scott

Harriet (Hattie) Scott was born in Sydney, Australia only 50 years after the colony of NSW was founded. She grew up in Sydney and on Ash Island in the Hunter River near Newcastle. By the time she was a teenager she was a skilled natural history artist, scientific observer and naturalist. She lived with her family on Ash Island for 20 years, working with her sister Helena to collect and study the island’s plants, butterflies and moths and paint the exquisitely detailed watercolours for their father’s book on Australian butterflies and moths, ‘Australian Lepidoptera and Their Transformations’ (1864-1898). The family moved back to Sydney in 1868 when their father was made bankrupt. Harriet was now forced to earn a living from her scientific art and for the next decade she and her sister Helena were the pre-eminent natural history illustrators for Sydney’s scientific elite. At the age of 52 Harriet married Dr Cosby William Morgan and retired from artistic work. She died in Sydney in 1907.