128 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE COUNCIL

He was born in Fiji and was brought home to be educated at Berkhamsted. In his later teens, heleft to join an uncle in Canada, but immediately the uncle fell seriously ill and the callow youth,perforce, became a wanderer over the whole of North America, settling at last on a ranch inAlberta. There he generated an abiding love of horses, which almost matched his attachment toammonites.

The rare, the unusual and the unpopular would not fail to capture his attention. On his skylinethe Delectable Mountains were bathed in a roseate glow, and, despite Bunyan's warning,whenever possible his approach to them would be along the byways. It is not surprising, therefore,to find him on his return to England quickly installed in Bristol as a masseur, as a vendor ofnature foods and a supporter of unorthodox causes. It was then he worked in the field with menof the standing of Tutcher and Trueman, and made large collections of fossils, mainly ammonites.These are now widely distributed at home and abroad. In 1952 he became a Life Member of theAssociation. He was a frequent member of excursions and a contributor to the Reunion ex­hibitions.

By descent, both through his father and his mother, he was a Scot with the splendid, sinewyfigure of the traditional Highlander. He would make light of a bicycle ride from Bristol to Lon­don, and in the field, if time had pressed, he would have cheerfully spent a night alongside arich find. His concern for young people and his warm-hearted love of his fellow men, whatevertheir creed or colour, directed his social activities and made him a tireless worker for the LabourParty. He was very much at home with the Bristol Naturalists and he served the society in most oftheir offices. His appetite for disputation made him an avid listener and a lively participator, butonly so long as tolerance and good temper prevailed. Malice was outside his realm of discourse,and his naive bonhomie would always turn the edge of hostility.

Bristol geologists may presume to join his widow, his three sons and his daughter in theirsorrow and pride, and they will long rejoice that they once enjoyed the company of such a trans­parently honourable and lovable man.

C. E. L.

John Thomas WATTISON, who was born 23 June 1884 and died in his ninetieth year on 10January 1974, was one of the last great amateur collectors in the geological world. He was anative of the Potteries, lived for twenty-six, years in Portugal and, when he returned to England in1936, spent the next twenty-seven years at Shrewsbury before coming back, on retirement, to hisnative town. By profession he was involved in the pottery industry, first serving an apprenticeshipas an engraver. In Portugal he was manager of a pottery in Oporto, and later, in Shrewsbury, hewas in business as a pottery factor besides keeping a china and antique shop.

All this gives little idea of the man. He was a great lover of nature, with an immense store of ac­curate knowledge, more especially in the fields of entomology and palaeontology, that he built upover the years by his own patient efforts. As a young man he received his inspiration from the ex­ample and the friendship of Wheelton Hind. In Portugal, whenever he had the time, he carriedout arduous journeys into the hill country of the Oporto hinterland, where he steadily amassed avaluable collection of Ordovician trilobites, the greater part of which is now in the NaturalHistory section of the British Museum. Butterflies also claimed a good deal of his boundlessenergy, and his book on Portuguese butterflies is still a standard work. While in Shrewsbury heorganised a geological collection in the County Museum, and he made innumerable excursionsinto the south Shropshire countryside-on a bicycle until increasing age had its effect-searchingout every fossiliferous locality and again accumulating a wonderful collection, the emphasis stillon Ordovician trilobites, though many other forms, mostly lower Palaeozoic, were also in

ANNUAL REPORT OF THE COUNCIL 129

evidence. In north Staffordshire and Derbyshire it was from the Carboniferous Limestone that hemainly collected, more especially the very fossiliferous reef limestones. But the value of hisspecimens owed much to his great skill in developing them, using delicate instruments, to displaytheir finest details. The bulk of his fossil collection of many thousands of specimens he left to thegeology department of Birmingham University.

Besides Fellowship of the Geological, Palaeontological and Entomological Societies he becamea member of various bodies---e.g. the Geologists' Association (both the Midland and North Staf­fordshire groups), the Caradoc and Severn Valley Field Club and the North Staffordshire FieldClub-for all of whom he conducted most rewarding Field Meetings. In the field he gave freely ofhis knowledge and was untiring in helping with the identification of fossils. At home he kept openhouse to all geologists, but he had an especial regard for young students, to whom a roomcrammed with books and with cabinets full of his prized specimens gave unfailing delight.

His wife, Alice Mary, nee Bennett, whom he married in 1911, aided him in all his activities.Unhappily she lost her sight while they were living in Shrewsbury, and she predeceased him by anumber of years. They are survived by their only son, Dr. A. Wattison, of Anstruther, Fife.

J.C.P.