William Whitehead Watts LL.D., D.Sc., M.Sc., F.R.S.
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Images
Timeline
| Date | Details |
|---|---|
| 1860 | Born at Broseley in Shropshire. |
| School at Denstone. Scholarship to Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. | |
| 1881 | 1st class in Geology in Natural Science Tripos. |
| 1881-1891 | University extension lecturing and various deputy-professorships. |
| 1891 | Appointed to Irish Geological Survey. Given charge of Survey Collections in National Museum in Dublin. |
| Transferred to English Survey, acted as Petrographer till 1897. | |
| 1897 | Resigned from Survey. Appointed to new assistant professorship at Mason College with Lapworth. |
| 1904 | Made Member of Senate and Professor of Geography in the newly constituted University of Birmingham. |
| 1904 | Elected to F.R.S. |
| 1906 | Succeeded Judd at Royal College of Science. |
| 1906 | Continued as Professor on reconstitution with Royal School of Mines and Central Technical College as Imperial College of Science and Technology. |
| 1906 | Worked on a succession of rocks in Shropshire, partly with Lapworth (paper in Q.J.). |
| 1906 | Survey work: (in addition to routine petrographical work) |
| 1906 | Examination of rocks collected by Jukes and others in Ireland and deposited in Survey Museum in Dublin. |
| 1906 | Description of Isle of Man rocks (in association with Lamplugh’s work on crush-conglomerates). |
| 1906 | Mapping and description of Charnwood Forest rocks. |
| 1906 | Handbook to Inst. rock collections |
Biographies and obituaries
Spencer, L.J. Obituary - William Whitehead Watts. Born 7th June 1860, died 30th July 1947. Mineralogical Magazine. v. 28 p.225-226. 1947
Oldham, R.D. Obituary - William Watts. [In Anniversary Address.]. Proceedings of the Geological Society in Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society. v. 77 p.lxxii-lxxiii. 1921
Fearnsides, W.G. Obituary - William Whitehead Watts. Proceedings of the Geological Society in Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society. v. 105 p.lviii-lxii. 1949
William Whitehead Watts — Wikipedia article
Boswell Percy George Hamnall. William Whitehead Watts, 1860-1947 Obit. Not. Fell. R. Soc.6263–279 http://doi.org/10.1098/rsbm.1948.0030
Watts, W. (1915). I.—Eminent Living Geologists. Geological Magazine, 2(11), 481-487. doi:10.1017/S0016756800203622
Watts, Willian Whitehead. Former Fellows of The Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783 – 2002
Watts, William Whitehead (WTS87WW). A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
Barrett, A. (2004, September 23). Watts, William Whitehead (1860–1947), geologist and educationist. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Retrieved 29 Aug. 2020, from https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-51710.
Prof W. W. Watts, F.R.S.: President-Elect of the British Association. Nature 134, 410 (1934). https://doi.org/10.1038/134410b0
Boswell, P. Prof. W. W. Watts, F.R.S. Nature 160, 355–356 (1947). https://doi.org/10.1038/160355a0
Publications
Contributed petrological notes to following Memoirs:
Memoir: Northumberland – Wooler and Coldstream (1895)
Memoir: Isle of Man (1903).
Memoir: South Wales Coalfield II
Memoir: Abergavenny
Memoir: Appleby (1897)
Memoir: Atherstone and Charnwood Forest (1900)
BGS archives
| Ref No | Title | Description | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GSM/DR/Ge | Archibald Geikie | Geikie was born in 1835. He joined the Survey in 1855 and became Director for Scotland in 1867. He was also the first Professor of Geology at the University of Edinburgh. His primary responsibility upon appointment as Director was to complete the mapping of the British Isles and wind up the Survey. He was keen to complete the mapping of Scotland and transferred staff from the England and Wales districts to Scotland for this purpose. Although H.H.Howell was appointed Director for Scotland, he worked mainly in the North of England and Geikie continued to supervise all survey work in Scotland. When Howell retired in 1899, Geikie did not appoint a successor.
Geikie began a series of stratigraphical memoirs, intended to be a comprehensive investigation of the rocks of a specific formation such as the Jurassic or Cretaceous. This differed from the usual regional memoirs which described the geology of an area and marked a significant departure in Survey publications. The first of these memoirs was 'The Pliocene Deposits of Britain' by C.Reid, in 1890. Geikie also contributed to the science of petrography and microscopic petrology within the Survey and set up a basic chemical laboratory in Edinburgh to undertake rock slicing and analysis. He appointed petrologists to the staff including J.J.H.Teall, F.H.Hatch, W.W.Watts and J.S.Hyland. Geikie also encouraged photography within the Survey and collected a large series of photographs of Scotland which were drawn on for memoirs and his own book 'The Ancient Volcanoes of Great Britain' published in 1897. During the last six months of his directorship, a Committee was established to enquire into the organisation and staff of the Geological Survey & Museum and report on its progress. It was chaired by J L Wharton and among other things it reorganised the staffing structure of the Survey to provide improved promotional opportunities to geologists. | |||
| GSM/DR/Ge/A/5 | Correspondence on various matters: letters to J.Craik, J.Evans, F.H.Hatch, J.Horne, D.R.Irvine, B.N.Peach (225 items); C.W.Peach, A C Ramsay, T.Reeks, F.W.Rudler, A.Strahan, W.Topley, and W.W.Watts; also some letters to Geikie. | ||||
| GSM/DR/Sb/7/3 | Photographs and letter | 1) E.S.Cobbold at Watling House, Shropshire, c1930; 2) 1) E.S.Cobbold at Watling House, Shropshire, c1930 2) G Delepine and Sir Arthur Smith Woodward, 19383) T H Clark and B F Howell, 1939 4) R Ruedemann , 1939 5) Letter from W W Watts to Stubblefield, 1937 | |||
| GSM/DR/Sb/8/3 | Publications | "The Pleistocene History of the West Midlands" by Prof L J Wills; "The Pleistocene History of the West Midlands" by Prof L J Wills "Note on the water supply of Uriconium" by R W Pocock; "A Guide to the Roman City of Uriconium" by George E Fox; "The Geology of South Shropshire" by W W Watts; "Lead and Zinc Ores in the Pre-carboniferous Rocks of West Shropshire and North Wales" by Bernard Smith and Henry Dewey | |||
| GSM/GL/Cm/3 | Correspondence: letters to Mr Brown, Jukes-Browne, Rudler (about Fullers Earth), W.Topley, W.W... | ||||
| GSM/GL/Wt | William Whitehead Watts | Watts joined the Survey in 1891 as a Petrologist in Ireland, filling the vacancy left by Hyland. He produced a 'Handbook of the Rocks and Minerals exhibited in the Dublin Museum'. He transferred to London in 1893 when Hatch left the Survey and remained there until 1897 when he left to become Assistant Professor of Geology at Birmingham University. | GSM/GL/Wt/2 | Correspondence: letters to T.Eastwood, J.S.Flett, E.M.Guppy, G.H.Mitchell, J.Pringle, C.J... | |
| GSM/GX/Bm/2/20 | "Folklore" | Envelope containing: Booklet "Ancient Carols", 1905; Article "Sacred Stones" by Grant Allen, from... | |||
| GSM/GX/Z/456 | Watts, W W | Menu for complimentary dinner |
Other archives
Watts, William Whitehead (1860-1947), geologist Entry at The National Archives
[https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsbm.1948.0030 William Whitehead Watts - signed portrait. Royal Society