Thomas Rowatt

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 ...

FSAS OBE MM (1879–1950) was a 20th century Scottish engineer who became Keeper then Director of the Royal Scottish Museum.

Life

He was born in

Kew Kew () is a district in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. Its population at the 2011 census was 11,436. Kew is the location of the Royal Botanic Gardens ("Kew Gardens"), now a World Heritage Site, which includes Kew Palace. Kew is a ...

on 7 November 1879 to Scottish parents. His grandfather Thomas Rowatt (d.1880) was involved with James Young in the Scottish shale oil industry. His family moved to Scotland in his youth and he was educated at Ewart High School in Newton Stewart. He studied Engineering at the Wohler Schule in

Frankfurt-on-Main Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian dialects, Hessian: , "Franks, Frank ford (crossing), ford on the Main (river), Main"), is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as o ...

and at Heriot-Watt College in

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

. He served his apprenticeship at Carrick & Ritchie, crane builders, at the Waverley Engineering Works on Easter Road, Edinburgh. In 1901 he became an assistant at the Royal Scottish Museum. In 1909 he was promoted to Assistant Keeper. In 1921 he replaced Alexander Gait as Keeper and in 1934 succeeded Edwin Ward as Director of the Museum. In the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

he served with the

Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is a corps of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces and is heade ...

attached to the Royal Naval Division at

Antwerp Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504,

. Redeployed to

Gallipoli The Gallipoli peninsula (; tr, Gelibolu Yarımadası; grc, Χερσόνησος της Καλλίπολης, ) is located in the southern part of East Thrace, the European part of Turkey, with the Aegean Sea to the west and the Dardanelles ...

in 1915 he won the

Military Medal The Military Medal (MM) was a military decoration awarded to personnel of the British Army and other arms of the armed forces, and to personnel of other Commonwealth countries, below commissioned rank, for bravery in battle on land. The award ...

for bravery. In 1935 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 Percy H. Grimshaw, Alexander Stephen, Sir

Thomas Hudson Beare Sir Thomas Hudson Beare FRSE RSSA (30 June 1859 – 10 June 1940) was an eminent British engineer. He was successively Professor of Engineering at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, at University College, London (where he was a colleague of K ...

and

John Brown Clark John Brown Clark or Clarke CBE LLD FRSE (30 April 1861 – 19 July 1947) was a Scottish mathematician. He was headmaster of George Heriot’s School from 1908 to 1926. He served as Vice President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1931–34. Li ...

. He was President of the Watt Club 1937/8. He retired in 1945 and died on 7 April 1950.

References

1879 births 1950 deaths Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Directors of museums in the United Kingdom {{UK-engineer-stub