44 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 
VIII.—.Obituary Notice of Ramsay H. Traquair, M.D., LL.D., 
F.R.S. By Percy H. Grimshaw, F.R.S.E., F.E.S. 
(With Plate.) 
(Read 24th March 1913. Received 22nd March 1913.) 
ON the 22nd November last the Royal Physical Society of Edinburgh lost one 
of its three oldest Fellows. Dr Ramsay Heatley Traquair, whose lamented 
death occurred on that day, was elected a member of the Society on the 23rd 
November 1859, and thus, by a melancholy coincidence, was taken from our 
midst within a few hours of the fifty-third anniversary of his admission to 
Fellowship. During this long period Dr Traquair ever showed a keen interest 
in the Society, taking an active part in all its proceedings, and serving in an 
official position almost without interruption. Indeed, between the year 1863, 
when he was elected a member of the Marine Zoology Committee, and that of 
1908, when he finally retired from the Council, the only break in his service 
as an officer of the Society occurred in the eight years from 1866 to 1873, 
when he resided in Cirencester and Dublin. 
From the following list of the positions held by the Doctor, one may 
imagine to what extent the Society must have benefited from its long and 
intimate association with a man of his scientific attainments : 
Elected member, 23rd Nov. 1859. Councillor, 1879-1880. 
Member of Marine Zoology Librarian, 1880-1881. 
Committee, 1863-1865. President, 1881-1884. 
Member of Library Committee, Councillor, 1885-1887. 
1863 and 1866. Secretary, 1887-1888. 
Councillor, 1864-1865. President, 1888-1891. 
(Left Edinburgh in 1866 and Councillor, 1891-1894. 
returned in 1873.) Secretary, 1895-1903. 
Councillor, 1874-1876. Vice-President, 1903-1905. 
President, 1876-1879. Councillor, 1906-1908. 
The proceedings of the Society bear strong evidence of Dr Traquair’s 
scientific activity, and of the esteem he felt for the Society itself. Obviously, 
he regarded the Society’s Journal as a most suitable medium for his writings, 
for some of his most important discoveries were first communicated to the 
scientific world through the agency of its pages. Out of some 133 memoirs, it 
is gratifying to know that no fewer than 31 were published in the Proceedings 
of the Royal Physical Society, amounting in the aggregate to over 260 pages. 
1 For the use of the block which illustrates this Paper the Society is indebted to Dr 
Henry Woodward, 
