R. C. S. Walters

Rupert Cavendish Skyring Walters FGS (21 July 1888 – 19 February 1980) was a New Zealand-born British civil engineer, geologist and author, specialising in water supply.

He is known for his work on the dams at British reservoirs including Sutton Bingham, Lamaload, Weir Wood, Drift and Stithians.

Walters was born on 21 July 1888,[1][a] the only child of Ethel Mary Aileen (née Skyring) and William Charles Flamstead Walters (died 1927),[1][2][3] a British classicist known as the co-editor of the Oxford edition of Livy, who was then employed at Christ's College school in Christchurch, New Zealand.

[4] He was educated at Westminster School (1904–7), and later read engineering at King's College London, where his father was fellow, professor and dean in the arts faculty.

[6] A more-critical review appeared in Nature; the reviewer disputes Walters' assertion that the custom of making small offerings to such wells originated with the Romans, considering that the widespread nature of the custom suggests an earlier origin, and also characterises "Christian well-worship" as a "contradiction in terms".

[7] He researched the subject of holy wells and springs, mainly in England and Wales, from 1924 until his death, and also prepared an unpublished work on Kent.

[1] In 1930, he received the inaugural Whitaker Medal of the Institution of Water Engineers (now part of the Geological Society) for his paper entitled, "The hydrogeology of the Chalk of England".

[17][18] He served as president of the Institution of Water Engineers (1951–52) and of the UK section of the Société des Ingénieurs Civils de France (1951), and was a council member of the Geological Society and of the Freshwater Biological Association.