|
With the passing of Professor Janet Vida Watson FRS the earth sciences in the U.K., and throughout the world, lost one of its most distinguished and well known personalities. For while Janet Watson spent most of her academic career in London, at Imperial College (after graduation with a First Class General Honours degree at Reading University in 1943), she was known throughout the world not only for her exceptional gift of clear and persuasive exposition both at the lecture bench and the committee table, but also as a major contributor to the advancement of the earth sciences. Her death on 29 March 1985, at the age of 61, brought to an untimely end a distinguished career which had seen many honours showered on her. The Geological Society of London, which had elevated her to the office of President in 1982–84, had previously awarded her, jointly with her husband (Professor John Sutton FRS) both the Lyell Fund (1954) and the Bigsby Medal (1965). They also honoured her with the Lyell Medal (1973) as they had her father (Professor D. M. S. Watson FRS) nearly 40 years previously. The Edinburgh Geological Society awarded her the Clough Medal (1980), she was President of Section C of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1972), elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London (1979) and a member of its Council and Vice-President (1983 until her death). To the various offices she held, Janet brought the directness, the precision and the liveliness of
...
This 250-word extract was created in the absence of an abstract.
