Prof Ernest Romney Matthews

FRSE Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". This soci ...

FGS MICE (1873-1930) was a British civil engineer and expert on coastal erosion. In authorship he is known as Ernest R. Matthews.

Life

He was born in Hastings in

Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...

on the southern English coast on 16 January 1873. He was the son of William Henry Matthews, the local chief coastguard and had a lifelong interest in the coast. He attended St Michael's School in Hastings. He became Chadwick Professor of Municipal Engineering at University College, London and was also the Chief Drainage Officer for London. In 1901 he was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was established i ...

. His proposers were James Geikie, John Horne, Ben Peach and Cargill Gilston Knott. In the First World War he had the unusual job of being in charge of trench sanitation, and oversaw the construction of latrines and drainage in France and Flanders. He was

Mentioned in Dispatches To be mentioned in dispatches (or despatches, MiD) describes a member of the armed forces whose name appears in an official report written by a superior officer and sent to the high command, in which their gallant or meritorious action in the face ...

. He died on 6 November 1930.

Family

He was married to Bessie Barker.

Publications

*''Coastal Erosion and Protection'' (1913) *''Planning from an Engineering Aspect'' (1912)

References

1873 births 1930 deaths People from Hastings British civil engineers Academics of the University of London Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh {{UK-engineer-stub