Persona

Sloley, Robert Walter

1879-1958

British scientist; born at Lewisham, 21 June 1879, son of Robert Hugh S., accountant, and Elizabeth Maxted; he graduated from St. John's College, Cambridge, and then joined the staff of Liverpool College; during the First World War he went to the Department of Instrument Inspection of the Air Ministry, and afterwards continued at Kidbrooke depot; while there he wrote a book on aircraft instruments which went through several editions; he travelled extensively and visited S. Africa and India; for a year or two he studied Egyptian at University College London, and was a member of the EES for over thirty years until his death; he also served on the Committee for many years and gave lectures to the Society, wrote book reviews and contributed to bibliographies in JEA; Sloley's great interest lay in ancient Egyptian mathematics and science, in particular astronomy and methods of measuring time, on which subject he was an expert; he wrote the chapter on 'Science' in The Legacy of Egypt, and contributed an important article on methods of measuring time to JEA 17, and another in Ancient Egypt for 1924; Sloley lectured to schools and broadcast a talk titled 'A Day in the Life of an Egyptian Schoolboy'; he died at Amersham, Bucks., 18 Aug. 1958.

• Who Was Who in Egyptology (4th ed. 2012), 514.