[2] He entered the University of Edinburgh and obtained a degree in Chemistry, Botany and Mathematics before furthered his studies in Physics at Munich, Vienna, Berlin and Glasgow (under Lord Kelvin).

During the Anglo-Boer War in February 1899, he and others demonstrated the application of wireless telegraphy by transmitting signals over a distance of 120 metres on Cape Town's Grand Parade using equipment imported from Britain.

Alfred Beit, a mining magnate and one of Cecil John Rhodes' collaborators, died in 1906 leaving a bequest of £200 000 for the creation of a university in Johannesburg.

He was elected to the Royal Society of Edinburgh on 1 March 1897, his proposers being Sir William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), Peter Guthrie Tait, Alexander Crum Brown and Cargill Gilston Knott.

Sir Carruthers Beattie is an alumnus and Doctor of Science of Edinburgh, who went to Cape Town as Professor of Physics thirty years ago, and soon traversed the heart of the African continent in the course of a magnetic survey.

The reputation he made for himself as Professor led to his selection as Principal of the University of Cape Town, when that institution, largely his handiwork, was established in 1918.

When its new buildings are completed within a year or two, there will be fulfilled the vision of Cecil Rhodes, who dreamt of a great South African University rising on the slopes of Table Mountain, and actually selected and gifted a site in this magnificent situation.

This temple of learning will be a lasting memorial both of the great empire-builder who first conceived the idea, and of the Vice-Chancellor whose executive ability and unflagging exertions have brought it into being.

Sir Carruthers's great services to the Dominion have been recognised by the Knighthood conferred upon him, and his alma mater is proud to laureate a son whose name is written so large in the academic history of South Africa; her only regret is that distance and pressure of affairs prevent his presence at today's ceremony.