Person

Watt, John Alexander (1868 - 1958)

Born
1868
Parramatta, New South Wales, Australia
Died
31 July 1958
Tenterfield, New South Wales, Australia
Occupation
Geologist, Medical practitioner and Mineralogist

Summary

John Watt was the first science graduate from the University of Sydney to work professionally as a geologist. He worked as an assayer for a mining company in central New South Wales before being appointed in 1894 to the Horn Scientific Exploring Expedition to Central Australia under the leadership of Charles Winnecke. His reports of the geological work of the Expedition were published in the official 4-volume Report edited by Baldwin Spencer. Following the Expedition, Watt spent a year in the United Kingdom on a Science Research Scholarship awarded by the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851. Between 1897 and 1899 he was a geologist with the Geological Survey of New South Wales, producing a number of papers in the publications of the State's Department of Mines. Watt then changed careers and qualified as a physician and surgeon. From 1907 to 1939 he was in private medical practice in Tenterfield, New South Wales.

Details

Chronology

1890
Education - BA, University of Sydney
1890 - 1892
Career position - Assayer and assistant metallurgist, Lewis Ponds Gold and Silver Mining Company
1894
Education - BSc, University of Sydney
May 1894 - August 1894
Career position - Geologist and mineralogist, Horn Scientific Exporing Expedition
1895
Award - Science Research Scholarship, Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851
1897 - 1899
Career position - Geologist, Geological Survey of New South Wales
1906
Education - Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians, London
1906
Education - Member of the Royal College of Surgeons, London
1907 - 1939
Career position - In general medical practice, Tenterfield, New South Wales

Related Events

Published resources

Book Sections

  • Branagan, D. F., 'John Alexander Watt: geologist on the Horn Expedition' in Exploring Central Australia: society, the environment and the 1894 Horn Expedition, Morton, S. R. and Mulvaney, D. J., eds (Chipping Norton, N.S.W.: Surrey Beatty & Sons, 1996), pp. 42-58. Details

Edited Books

  • Spencer, Baldwin ed., Report on the work of the Horn Expedition to Central Australia, 4 vols (London: Melbourne: Dulau and Co.: Melville, Mullen and Slade, 1896). Details

Journal Articles

  • Watt, J. A., 'Report on Winter's Reef, near Condobolin', Annual report Department of Mines New South Wales (1898), 184-6. Details
  • Watt, J. A., 'Further remarks of the on the saddle reefs of the Hargraves Goldfield', Records of the Geological Survey of New South Wales, 6 (1899), 83-107. Details

Reports

  • Advisory Council of Science and Industry, Report of the Executive Committee of the Commonwealth Advisory Council of Science and Industry: covering the period from the date of the appointment of the Executive Committee (14th April, 1916) to the 30th June 1917 (Melbourne: Commonwealth Government Printer, 1917). https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-2788471586. Details

Resources

Rosanne Walker and Helen Cohn

EOAS ID: biogs/P002725b.htm

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