{{Short description|Scottish physicist (1899–1982)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} '''Thomas Alty''' {{post-nominals|post-noms=FRSE FIP FRSC LLD}} (10 September 1899 – 2 May 1982) was a Scottish physicist and university administrator who became Chancellor of Rhodes University in South Africa.
==Life==
He was born in Liverpool on 10 September 1899.<ref>Proceedings of the Royal Society of Canada 1984</ref>
He studied Science at Liverpool University then did postgraduate studies at Cambridge University. In 1924 he began lecturing in Physics at Durham University. In 1925 aged only 25 he was made a Professor of Physics at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada. In 1934 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://library.usask.ca/archives/campus-history/fellows-royal-society-can.php|title=Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada - University of Saskatchewan|website=library.usask.ca}}</ref>
In 1935 he returned to Britain as Professor of Applied Physics at Glasgow University. In 1936 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were Edward Taylor Jones, John Walton, Sir Edward Battersby Bailey and John Graham Kerr. He resigned and was re-elected in 1942. His second proposers were Edward Hindle, Sir Edmund Taylor Whittaker, James Pickering Kendall and James Ritchie.<ref>{{cite book|title=Biographical Index of Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783–2002|date=July 2006|publisher=The Royal Society of Edinburgh|isbn=0-902-198-84-X|url=https://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp2.pdf|access-date=6 April 2017|archive-date=4 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304074135/https://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp2.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref>
In 1948 he left Britain again to become a Master at Rhodes University in South Africa in 1951 becoming both Principal and Vice Chancellor.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.universitystory.gla.ac.uk/biography/?id=WH2468&type=P|title=Biography of Thomas Alty|website=www.universitystory.gla.ac.uk}}</ref> Glasgow University gave him an honorary doctorate (LLD) in 1953.
He died in Birmingham in England on 2 May 1982.<ref>Proceedings of the Royal Society of Canada 1987</ref>
==References== {{reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Alty, Thomas}} Category:1899 births Category:1982 deaths Category:Scottish physicists Category:Academics from Liverpool Category:Alumni of the University of Glasgow Category:Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada Category:Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Category:Academic staff of Rhodes University Category:Scottish expatriates in South Africa Category:20th-century British physicists