1899-1900.] Chairmans Opening Address. 9 
Glasgow Chamber of Commerce. About the end of 1871 the 
Directors of the Royal Bank of Scotland invited him to become 
their Cashier and General Manager. In 1892 he resigned this 
office. He died on 8th July 1899. He was elected a Fellow of 
this Society in 1876. 
Sir John Fowler was the eldest son of the late Mr Fowler of 
Wadsley Hall, Sheffield. His earliest important appointment was 
on the Stockton and Hartlepool Railway, of which he was resident 
engineer. At the age of twenty-seven he was selected as engineer 
for constructing the large group of railways known as the Man- 
chester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire line, which includes tunnels, 
viaducts and bridges, in addition to a dock, floating pier, large 
hydraulic works and steam ferry. Of these vast and multifarious 
works he had the sole engineering charge. A mere catalogue of 
the works executed by him from this date would occupy more 
space than can be afforded here. The Forth Bridge was his 
greatest work, in the construction of which he was assisted by Sir 
Benjamin Baker. He must have been gratified in his old age in 
seeing this and his other works, in full operation, ministering to 
the social and commercial needs of the country. 
In 1866 he was elected President of the Institution of Civil 
Engineers. In 1885 he was created a K.C.M.G., and in 1890 he 
was promoted to a baronetcy. In recognition of his services to the 
science of engineering, the University of Edinburgh conferred on 
him the degree of LL.D. in 1890. He died on the 20th of 
November 1898. He was elected a Fellow of this Society in 1887. 
Dr John Moir was born in the French prison of Verdun, for it 
was there that his father, a naval surgeon, taken prisoner during 
the Napoleonic wars, was joined by his mother, who remained in 
captivity with her husband until such time as an exchange of 
prisoners was effected. He graduated as Doctor of Medicine in 
Edinburgh in 1828, and became Assistant to Professor Hamilton, 
predecessor of Sir James Simpson, and conducted the class of mid- 
wifery in the University between the death of Hamilton and the 
appointment of Sir James. He was successively President of the 
Obstetrical Society, the Medico-Chirurgical Society, and the Royal 
College of Physicians. He died at the age of ninety- two on 14th 
May 1899. He was elected a Fellow of this Society in 1865. 
