Ronald Ian Currie

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 ...

CBE (1928 – 1996) was a Scottish marine biologist. He was known generally as Ron Currie. After early research into the analysis of plankton layers in the oceans using measurement of light penetration and audio signals, he was appointed director of the

Scottish Marine Biological Association The Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS) is one of Europe's leading marine science research organisations, one of the oldest oceanographic organisations in the world and is Scotland's largest and oldest independent marine science org ...

on the West Coast of Scotland.

Life

Born in Paisley on 10 October 1928, the son of Ronald Wavell Currie, a solicitor, he studied Zoology at

Glasgow University , image = UofG Coat of Arms.png , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms Flag , latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis , motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita , ...

graduating BSc with First Class Honours in 1949. After a short time at the

University of Copenhagen The University of Copenhagen ( da, Københavns Universitet, KU) is a prestigious public university, public research university in Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 1479, the University of Copenhagen is the second-oldest university in ...

he joined the Royal Naval Scientific Service where he was seconded to the National Institute of Oceanography then in

Wormley, Surrey Wormley is a village in Surrey, England in the parish of Witley, around Witley station, off the A283 Petworth Road about SSW of Godalming. History Expansion from archetypal hamlet Wormley developed primarily as a result of the construction i ...

. During this time he joined expeditions to the Antarctic and the Arabian Sea, on RRS William Scoresby and RRS Discovery, and in 1962 he became Head of Biology at the Institute. In 1966 he returned to Scotland to become Director of the

station at Millport on the island of

Great Cumbrae Great Cumbrae ( sco, Muckle Cumbrae; gd, Cumaradh Mòr; also known as Great Cumbrae Island, Cumbrae or the Isle of Cumbrae) is the larger of the two islands known as The Cumbraes in the lower Firth of Clyde in western Scotland. The island is s ...

, where he took on the relocation of the station to Dunstaffnage, near Oban, Argyll. Subsequently he was responsible for research projects throughout Scotland and the North Atlantic, and directed the development of the research vessels RRS Challenger, RV Calanus, and RV Seòl Mara. * Fellow of the

Institute of Biology The Institute of Biology (IoB) was a professional body for biologists, primarily those working in the United Kingdom. The Institute was founded in 1950 by the Biological Council: the then umbrella body for Britain's many learned biological societies ...

* 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 ...

* Secretary of the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research * Secretary and President of the International Association of Biological Oceanography * Secretary of the Challenger Society for Marine Science * Committee Member on the

Nature Conservancy Council The Nature Conservancy Council (NCC) was a United Kingdom government agency responsible for designating and managing National Nature Reserves and other nature conservation areas in Great Britain between 1973 and 1991 (it did not cover Northern ...

* Vice President of the

Marine Conservation Society The Marine Conservation Society is a UK based not-for-profit organization working with businesses, governments and communities to clean and protect the oceans. Founded in 1983, the group claims to be working towards "cleaner, better-protected, h ...

Ron was created a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the

1977 Silver Jubilee and Birthday Honours The 1977 Silver Jubilee and Birthday Honours were announced on 11 June 1977 to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II's Silver Jubilee and Birthday in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Barbados, Mauritius, Fiji, the Bahamas, Grenada, and ...

List in recognition of his contribution to marine science. Heriot Watt University further granted him an honorary professorship in 1979. A popular figure locally, Ron was for a time Chairman of the local Community Council, and did charitable work with the North British Hotels Trust and the Royal National Mission to Deep-Sea Fishermen. He retired in 1987, and died in Oban on 19 February 1996.

Publications

*''Organic Production in the Sea'' (1959) *''The Benguela Current'' (1960) *''Discovery: Britain’s Sea-going Research Laboratory'' (New Scientist 24 Jan 1963)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Currie, Ronald Ian 1928 births 1996 deaths Alumni of the University of Glasgow Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Scottish oceanographers People from Paisley, Renfrewshire Scottish marine biologists 20th-century British zoologists