Editing Alexander Thom (section)

== Life and work ==
===Early life and education===
Thom was born in [[Carradale]] in 1894 to Archibald Thom,<ref>{{cite ODNB |url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-38056 |title=Thom, Alexander (1894–1985), aerodynamicist and archaeologist |year=2004 |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/38056}}</ref> a [[tenant farmer]] at ''Mains farm'' for Carradale House, and his wife Lily Stevenson Strang from the family of [[Robert Louis Stevenson]]. Her mother (Thom's grandmother) belonged to a large family from [[Symington, South Ayrshire|Symington]], upon whom had been bestowed the land by [[Robert the Bruce]].{{citation needed|date=December 2019}} His father trained the Church [[choir]] while his mother was pianist.

Thom spent his early years at Mains farm until moving to ''The Hill'' farm at [[Dunlop, East Ayrshire|Dunlop]], Ayrshire. Instilled with a good [[work ethic]] by his father, Thom taught himself [[industrial engineering]] and entered college in [[Glasgow]] in 1911 where he studied alongside [[John Logie Baird]]. In 1912 he attended summer school at [[Loch Eck]] where he was trained in surveying and field [[astronomy]] by Dr David Clark and Professor Moncur. In 1913, aged just 19, he assisted in surveying the Canadian Pacific Rail Network.

Thom graduated from the [[Royal College of Science and Technology]] and the [[University of Glasgow]] in 1914, earning a BSc with special distinction in Engineering.

===Early academic career===
He suffered from a [[heart murmur]] and was not [[Conscription|drafted]] during the [[First World War]]. Instead he went to work in civil engineering of the [[Forth Bridge]] and later designed [[flying boats]] for the Gosport Aircraft Company. In 1917 he married Jeanie Kirkwood with whom he shared a long and lively marriage.

He returned to the University of Glasgow and worked as a lecturer from 1922 to 1939, quickly earning his PhD and [[DSc]] degrees. He built his own home called ''Thalassa'' in 1922, along with a [[windmill]] to power it with electricity. His father died in 1924 and he took over running the farm where he fathered three children, Archibald, Beryl and Alan. Thom helped to develop the Department of [[Aeronautics]] at the University of Glasgow and lectured on statistics, practical field surveying, [[theodolite]] design and [[astronomy]]. From 1930 to 1935 he was a [[Carnegie Corporation of New York|Carnegie Teaching Fellow]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Ruggles |first=Clive |title=Records in Stone: Papers in memory of Alexander Thom |date=2003 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-53130-6}}</ref>

During the [[Second World War]], Thom moved to [[Fleet, Hampshire|Fleet]] in Hampshire where he was appointed Principal Scientific Officer heading the [[Royal Aircraft Establishment]] team that developed the first high speed [[wind tunnel]].

===Ancient engineering and the Megalithic yard===
Later, he was professor and chair of engineering science at [[Brasenose College]], [[University of Oxford]] where he became interested in the methods that [[prehistoric]] peoples used to build [[megalithic monument]]s. Thom became especially interested in the [[stone circle]]s of the [[British Isles]] and France and their astronomical associations.<ref>{{cite book |last=Hutton |first=Ronald |title=The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles |publisher=Blackwell Publishing |year=1993 |page=111 |isbn=978-0-631-18946-6 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ifjw5Ce_NgEC&q=Thom+stone+circles+british+isles&pg=RA1-PA1 |via=Google Books }}{{Dead link|date=August 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>

Thom (1955)<ref>{{cite journal |first=Alexander |last=Thom |year=1955 |title=A statistical examination of megalithic sites in Britain |journal=Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series A |volume=118 |issue=3 |pages=275–295 |doi=10.2307/2342494 |jstor=2342494 |url=https://www.jstor.org/pss/2342494|url-access=subscription }}</ref> in which he first suggested the [[megalithic yard]] as a standardised prehistoric measurement. He retired from academia in 1961 to spend the rest of his life devoted to this area of research. The [[Thom Building]], housing the [[Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford|Department of Engineering Science]] at Oxford, built in the 1960s, is named after Alexander Thom.

From around 1933 to 1977 Thom spent most of his weekends and holiday periods hefting theodolites and survey equipment around the countryside with his family member or friends, most notably with his son Archie. From studies measuring and analysing the data created at over five hundred [[megalithic]] sites, he attempted to classify stone circles into different [[morphology (linguistics)|morphological]] types, Type&nbsp;A, Type&nbsp;B, Type&nbsp;B modified, and Type&nbsp;D flattened circles, Type&nbsp;1 and Type&nbsp;2 [[oval|egg]]s, [[oval]]s and true [[circles]].

His son Alan died in a [[plane crash]] in 1945.

===Archaeoastronomical speculations===
He suggested several were built as [[astronomical complex]]es to predict [[eclipse]]s via nineteen-year cycles. Thom went on to identify numerous solar and stellar alignments at stone circles, providing the foundations for the scientific discipline of [[archaeoastronomy]].

He further suggested the prehistoric peoples of Britain must have used a solar method of keeping calendar. Based on statistical [[histogram]]s of observed [[declination]]s at horizon marks with no convenient star at −22°, +8°, +9° and +22° (except possibly [[Spica]] at +9°) between 2100 and 1600&nbsp;BCE, he suggested a year based on sixteen months; four with twenty two days, eleven with twenty three days, and one with twenty four.

Thom's suggested megalithic solar year was divided by [[midsummer]], [[Winter solstice|midwinter]], and the two [[equinox]]es into four and then subdivided into eight by early versions of the modern Christian festivals of [[Whitsun]], [[Lammas]], [[Martinmas]], and [[Candlemas]] (see [[Scottish Quarter Days]]). He found little evidence for further subdivision into thirty two, but noted "We do not know how sophisticated prehistoric man's calendar was, but the interesting thing is that he obtained declinations very close to those we have obtained as ideal".

Thom explored these topics further in his later books
* ''Megalithic Sites in Britain'' ([[Oxford University Press|Oxford]], 1967)
* ''Megalithic Lunar Observatories'' ([[Oxford University Press|Oxford]], 1971)
* ''Megalithic Remains in Britain and Brittany'' ([[Oxford University Press|Oxford]], 1978)
The last was written with his son Archie, after they carried out a detailed survey of the [[Carnac stones]] from 1970 to 1974.<ref name="Thom1967">{{cite book |first=Alexander |last=Thom |year=1967 |title=Megalithic Sites in Britain |page=107 |publisher=Oxford University Press, print on demand |isbn=978-0-19-813148-9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UviAAAAAMAAJ |via=Google Books}}</ref>

Thom's ideas met with resistance from the [[archaeological]] community but were welcomed amongst elements of 1960s [[counter-culture]]. Along with [[Gerald Hawkins]]' new interpretation of [[Stonehenge]] as an [[astronomical]] 'computer' (see [[Archaeoastronomy and Stonehenge]]), Thom's theories were adopted by numerous enthusiasts for 'the lost wisdom of the ancients' and became commonly associated with [[pseudoscience]].{{Citation needed|date=April 2011}}

===Later life===
In 1975, his wife, Jeanie died. In 1981 he underwent an eye operation and in 1982 he broke a [[femur]] falling on [[ice]]. He continued to write papers and undertook interviews and correspondence using a dictaphone with the assistance of audio typist, Hilda Gustin. He moved in with his daughter Beryl in 1983 in [[Banavie]]. Registered as [[Blindness|blind]], he concluded a final book ''Stone Rows and Standing Stones'', a 557&nbsp;page tome published posthumously with the assistance of [[Aubrey Burl]] in 1990. Thom died on 7&nbsp;November 1985 at [[Fort William, Scotland|Fort William]] hospital, aged&nbsp;91. His body was buried near [[Ayr]].

Alexander Thom is survived by his daughter Beryl Austin, and his grandchildren. 
His son Archie survived him, but died ten years later, in 1995, from a brain tumour.