Alexander Stuart Watt. 21 June 1892-2 March 1985

Alexander Stuart Watt was an ecologist who made a major contribution to the study of British vegetation. The ideas on the dynamics of plant communities in his Presidential Address to the British Ecological Society in 1947, 'Pattern and process in the plant community’ revolutionized the understanding of natural vegetation throughout the world. He was a scientist of a kind which is now uncommon; though always ready to advise those who sought his help, he rarely worked in collaboration, but made his major and lasting contribution to the understanding of vegetation entirely by his own work. He carried out extensive and meticulous field work, which was continued long after formal retirement, gave deep consideration to the data and presented his results in papers which are models of precision and clarity.