Thomas Diery Patten CBE FRSE (1 January 1926 – 4 July 1999) was a Scottish mechanical engineer and educator.
He was involved in the development of the Scottish North Sea Oil Industry in the 1960s, heading the Institute of Offshore Engineering.
He was born in Ford, Northumberland on New Years Day, 1 January 1926 to Scottish parents: his father was William Ford who had raised himself from a post office telegraph boy to manager of the Prudential Insurance Company.
Although too young to serve in the Second World War he served National Service 1947 to 1949, and was posted first to Palestine (during its critical years), and then to the British Military Mission in Greece where he attached to the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers with the notional rank of captain.
His proposers were John F. Allen, William Ewart Farvis, Norman Feather and Mowbray Ritchie.