John Ellis

Born: January 5, 1946; Died: September 11, 2014

John Ellis, who has died aged 68, was an engineer, writer and lecturer and an expert in the field of water hydraulics. He was a lecturer in the hydraulics department of Strathclyde University and later a private consulting engineer.

He was born in Scotstoun in Glasgow, the younger son of Harold and Christina Ellis. His father was involved in a serious accident when John was around seven which resulted in a leg being amputated. This was a hard period for the family, and his father dying when John was 11 had a profound effect on John's life.

He was educated at Bankhead Primary and then Victoria Drive Secondary School.

He always enjoyed mathematical and technical subjects and decided to join a civil engineering course at the Tech which soon afterwards became the University of Strathclyde.

He graduated in 1967, BSc First Class Honours, and promptly decided he had not done enough mathematical and computational problems and enrolled again to do a PhD. He gained his doctorate in 1970 the same year he married Elizabeth whom he met when they were both Sunday School teachers.

He was offered a couple of jobs with large engineering consultants but decided to stay on at Strathclyde in a teaching post.

He built computational models for large projects saving thousands of pounds for companies who had been used to building physical models before a job started. His big interest was water. He could study water movement and flow for hours and it was common for him to interrupt a nice run or a picnic to photograph a dam.

Unfortunately in the early 1980s, his health began to deteriorate and he could no longer manage to get into the 9am lecture and he applied for ill health retirement. After a long period of rest he had quite a time of remission and started his own engineering consultancy business which satisfied his need to use the talents he had been given without working to a strict timetable.

He also became a research fellow at Glasgow University and taught a 10-week course there for many years until again his health took a dip and he had to give that up.

He continued to work away at home building his computer models and tailoring them to suit the needs of different projects, but about ten years ago he realised that he was too ill to take on the risk of not being able to finish someone's project and he stopped working altogether.

This caused him great distress because his work had been his life.

It was suggested to him that he had gained a vast knowledge of engineering and computational topics so why not write them down for the next generation coming along and so he became a writer of text books, although sadly he did not manage to complete his final book.

He was always a quiet man, never the first to speak in a conversation and in fact sometimes he spoke so quietly that others spoke over him not realising he was actually speaking. He always said it was the thing that attracted him to Elizabeth was that she could strike up a conversation with anyone.

He was also a colourful dresser and people commenting on this fact just encouraged him to be more outrageous when he chose clothes. It helped him to look and feel a bit better if he wore something bright.

In 1977 he was awarded the Robert Alfred Carr Premium by the Institution of Civil Engineers, and they also presented him with the James Watt Medal.

He is survived by his wife Elizabeth and his West Highland terrier Angus.