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Authorised form of nameGowland; William (1842 - 1922); metallurgist and archaeologist
Dates1842 - 1922
NationalityBritish
Place of birthSouth Durham Street, Sunderland, co. Durham, England
Date of birth16 December 1842
Place of death13 Russell Road, Kensington, London, England
Date of death10/06/1922
DatesAndPlacesBrial place: St Marylebone cemetery, East Finchley,London, England
OccupationMetallurgist; Archaeologist
Research fieldMetallurgy
Chemistry
ActivityEducation: Royal College of Chemistry (1868)
Career: Employed at the Broughton Copper Co., Salford, Lancashire (1870-1872); went to Japan as a foreigner employed by the Meiji government to assist in its modernisation programme (1872); retrained as a technical adviser (1875); chief metallurgist at the mint (1878); assayer to the imperial war department of the Japanese government (1888); awarded the fourth class of the order of the Rising Sun and promoted to the third class at the end of his employment; undertook comprehensive and pioneering archaeological investigations in Japan; resumed employment at Broughton Copper Co on his return; succeeded Sir William Roberts-Austen as professor of metallurgy in the Royal School of Mines (1902).
Memberships:
FCS; FIC; SA; Japan Society; The Anthropological Institute; Institution of Mining and Engineering (President 1907).
Membership categoryFellow
Date of election07/05/1908
Age at election66
ProposerArthur William Rucker; John Wesley Judd; Henry Clifton Sorby; Avebury [John Lubbock]; John Milne; William Matthew Flinders Petrie; Henry Selby Hele-Shaw; Harry Govier Seeley; John Perry; Horace Tabberer Brown
Archibald Liversidge; William Crookes; Raphael Meldola; Herbert McLeod; William Ramsay; Arthur Herbert Church; James Dewar; Thomas Edward Thorpe; Edward Divers; John Edward Stead
RelationshipsParents: George Thompson Gowland (1800/01–1847), shipowner and innkeeper, and Catherine, formerly Ovington, née Kelly (1805–1891).
Spouse: 1) Joanna (1859/60–1909), youngest daughter of Murdoch Macaulay, of Linshador, Stornoway, Isle of Lewis (2 September 1890); 2) Maude Margaret (1868–1949), a schoolteacher, daughter of Duncan James Connacher, dentist (31 March 1910).
PublishedWorksRCN 41422
OtherInfoRemembered for his excavations in Japan and at Stonehenge.
SourceSources:
Bulloch's Roll; DNB
Obituaries:
Proc Roy Soc Series A 1922-1923 vol 102 pp xvi-xix, plate, signed by W A T
Proc Roy Soc Series B 1922-1923 vol 94 pp xl-xliii, plate, signed by W A T
CodeNA8177
Archives associated with this Fellow
RefNoTitleDate
EC/1908/07Gowland, William: certificate of election to the Royal Society
NLB/32/591Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, to Professor William Gowland10 April 1906
NLB/37/589Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison to Professor W [William] Gowland10 April 1908
NLB/37/871Copy Letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison to W [William] Barlow, Fellow of the Royal Society26 May 1908
IM/001728Gowland, William1922
NLB/63/18Copy letter from Sir Charles Scott Sherrington, President of the Royal Society; to Miss Catherine Gowland15 June 1922
RR/20/152Referee's report by William Gowland, on a paper 'A method of avoiding inaccuracy due to weight errors in fixing a gold coinage standard trial plate' by O WatkinsFebruary 1914
NLB/63/34Copy letter from Francis Alexander Towle, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Sir William [Augustus] Tilden, FRS16 June 1922
NLB/63/444Copy letter from Francis Alexander Towle, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Sir William Tilden, FRS, The Oaks, Northwood, Middlesex14 October 1922
MC/23/191Letter from [William] Gowland, Glenthorne, Westgate on Sea, to Mr [Robert] Harrison9 May 1908
NLB/37/768Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison to Professor W [William] Gowland, Fellow of the Royal Society11 May 1908
MC/26/98Letter from 13 [William] Gowland, Russell Road, Kensington, W, to Mr [Robert] Harrison, [Royal Society]26 January 1911
NLB/43/491Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, to Professor William Gowland, Fellow of the Royal Society27 January 1911
MC/27/138Letter from [William] Gowland, 13 Russell Road, Kensington, W, to Mr [Robert] Harrison, [Royal Society]2 May 1912
NLB/45/729Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison to Professor W [William] Gowland FRS30 April 1912
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