Dr James Powrie of Reswallie

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 (1815–1895) was a 19th-century Scottish geologist, palaeontologist and astronomer. He amassed a major collection of fossils during his lifetime.

Life

He was born at Reswallie House in Angus in 1814/15 the son of William Powrie (1770–1845), a

Dundee Dundee (; sco, Dundee; gd, Dùn Dè or ) is Scotland's fourth-largest city and the 51st-most-populous built-up area in the United Kingdom. The mid-year population estimate for 2016 was , giving Dundee a population density of 2,478/km2 or ...

merchant and manufacturer with premises at East Chapelshade (sic). Powrie Lane in Dundee appears to be named after him. His brother Thomas Powrie appears to have run the family business in the 1830s. James studied science at St Andrews University, graduating MA around 1835. In 1845 he inherited his father's business in Dundee and the Reswallie estate. In 1865 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 proposer was David Page. In 1868/9 he was president of the Edinburgh Geological Society. He regularly corresponded with the botanist George Gordon,

Charles William Peach Charles William Peach ALS (30 September 1800 – 28 February 1886) was a British naturalist and geologist. He discovered fossils in Cornwall, after it had been stated by the geologists William Conybeare, that there were no fossil-bearing rocks ...

, Sir Edwin Lankester and Henry Woodward. He died of a heart attack on 25 May 1895. He is buried in the family plot at Rescobie churchyard near Forfar. A number of his fossils were donated to the Forfar Museum and the Royal Scottish Museum.

Publications

*''The Fishes of the Old Red Sandstone'' (1868)

Family

He was married to Mary Dickson (died 1903). They had a son Thomas Powrie (1843–1933) and daughter Isabella Powrie (died 1939).

References

1815 births 1895 deaths Alumni of the University of St Andrews Scottish geologists Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh {{UK-geologist-stub