David M. S. Watson

David Meredith Seares Watson FRS (18 June 1886 – 23 July 1973) was the Jodrell Professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy at University College, London from 1921 to 1951.

Watson was born at Higher Broughton, near Salford, Lancashire, the only son of David Watson, a pioneering metallurgist. He was educated at Manchester Grammar School and the University of Manchester. He specialised in geology and began to study plant fossils in coal deposits. In 1907, his final year, he published an important paper on coal balls with Marie Stopes (who had an early career as a paleobotanist); after graduating with first class honours he was appointed as a Beyer fellow at Manchester and went on to complete his MSc in 1909.

After his MSc, Watson continued to develop his wide interest in fossils and studied intensively at the British Museum of Natural History in London, and on extended visits to South Africa, Australia, and the United States. In 1912 he was appointed as a Lecturer in Vertebrate Palaeontology, at University College London by Professor James Peter Hill.

His academic work was eventually interrupted in 1916 by World War I when he took a commission in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. He was later transferred to the nascent Royal Air Force where he worked on balloon and airship fabric design.

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