Watson , David Meredith Seares , 1886-1973 , palaeontologist

Born at Higher Broughton, near Salford, Lancashire, only son of the two children of David Watson, chemist, metallurgist, and pioneer of the electrolytic refining of copper, and his wife Mary, daughter of Samuel Seares, a London stockbroker, 1886; educated privately and at Manchester Grammar School; entered the University of Manchester, 1904; intended a career in chemistry and industry, but in fact specialised in geology, and while an undergraduate began to study preserved plants from Coal Measures deposits, with Marie Stopes producing a seminal paper on coal balls in Philosophical Transactions, vol 200B, 1907; graduated with first class honours in geology, 1907; produced other papers on palaeobotany, 1907-1908; Beyer fellow at the University of Manchester, 1908; MSc; demonstrator, 1909; Watson's sister Constance died tragically in her second year at Somerville College Oxford, 1909; Watson became interested in fossil reptiles and other vertebrates, visited many fossil localities in Britain, and worked intensively in the British Museum (Natural History) (BMNH), 1908-1911; became interested in the BMNH collection of fossil reptiles from the Karoo (Karroo) of South Africa, and to further his knowledge collected extensively there, met the palaeontologist Robert Broom, and set up a subdivision of the Beaufort Series into biostratigraphical zones, 1911; invited by James P Hill to be honorary lecturer in vertebrate palaeontology at University College London, 1911; Lecturer in Vertebrate Palaeontology, University College London, 1912-1921; collected fossils in Australia, 1914; wrote an account of the embryological development of the skull of the platypus; returned through North America, making useful collections in Texas, 1915; returned to Britain and took a technical commission as lieutenant in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, 1916-1918; married Katharine Margarite Parker, 1917; transferred to the Royal Air Force as a captain, working on airship and balloon fabrics, 1918; after World War One, conducted research at Newcastle upon Tyne on coal measure amphibia and fish; returned to University College London, 1920; succeeded Hill as Jodrell Professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy, 1921; developed the Zoology department at University College London; elected Fellow of the Royal Society, 1922; Croonian lecturer, Royal Society, 1924; Romanes lecturer at Oxford, 1928; Rainer Medal, 1928; Honorary DSc, Cape Town, 1929; member of the Agricultural Research Council, 1931-1942; Lyell medal, Geological Society of London, 1935; Silliman lecturer, Yale University, 1937; in the USA as acting secretary of the Agricultural Research Council, 1939; returned to supervise the evacuation of the department to Bangor; became Secretary of the Scientific Subcommittee of the Food Policy Committee of the War Cabinet, 1940; Thompson Medal, National Academy of Sciences of the USA, 1941; Darwin medal, Royal Society, 1942; Honorary LLD, Aberdeen, 1943; Honorary DSc, Manchester, 1943; returned to University College in Bangor and, when the war-damaged department was made habitable, in London; Trustee of the British Museum, 1946-1963; travelled abroad, including the USSR, South Africa, and Ceylon; honorary fellow of University College London, 1948; Honorary DSc, Reading and Wales, 1948; Honorary DSc, Witwatersrand, 1949; Linnean medal, Linnean Society, 1949; retired from his chair and became Emeritus Professor, 1951; Alexander Agassiz visiting professor at Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard, 1952-1953; Darwin Wallace Medal, Linnean Society, 1958; recipient of a Festschrift, Studies on Fossil Vertebrates presented to David Meredith Seares Watson, edited by T Stanley Westoll, 1958; continued to have the use of a room at University College London and with his secretary and illustrator since 1928, Joyce Townsend, continued to write papers until his full retirement from scientific research, 1965; Wollaston medal, Geological Society of London, 1965; scientific papers, apart from early and significant work on fossil plants, dealt largely with vertebrate palaeontology, including seminal work on fossil reptiles, based largely on his own collections from South Africa, Texas, and elsewhere; two daughters, Katharine Mary and Janet Vida; died, 1973. See also F R Parrington and T S Westoll's memoir in Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, vol xx (1974), pp 483-504. Publications: Palaeontology and the Evolution of Man ... Romanes Lecture ... 1928 (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1928); The Animal Bones from Skara Brae (1931); Science and Government [Earl Grey Memorial Lecture no 24, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1942]; Paleontology and Modern Biology [Mrs Hepsa Ely Silliman Memorial Lectures] (Yale University Press, New Haven, [1951]); The Brachyopid Labyrinthodonts, etc [Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History): Geology, vol ii, no 8] (London, 1956); A New Labyrinthodont, Paracyclotosaurus, from the Upper Trias of New South Wales, etc [Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History): Geology, vol iii, no 7] (London, 1958); The Anomodont Skeleton [Transactions of the Zoological Society of London, vol xxix, pt 3] (London, 1960); many papers on vertebrate palaeontology and connected subjects in Philosophical Transactions, Proceedings of the Zoological Society, Journal of Anatomy, and elsewhere.