(1914-2005) A doctor and active Winnipeg Centre member; meteor and solar observer. Received Service Award in 1971.

JOHN N.R. SCATLIFF (1914-) had a distinguished medical career in Winnipeg. Having earned his M.B., B.S. degree from the University of London in 1941, and his Diploma in Public Health from the University of Toronto in 1951, he became Medical Director of the Misericordia Hospital in Winnipeg and the Director of Venereal Disease Control for Manitoba.

Dr Scatliff played a very active part in the Winnipeg Centre and in recognition of this, received the Service Award in 1971. He had been on the Council since 1955 including a term as President of the Centre in 1958-60. He spoke frequently at meetings, instructed and tested Girl Guides and Boy Scouts for their astronomy badges, taught telescope-making in schools, gave a ten-week Extension course in astronomy at the University of Manitoba and was part of the University of the Air astronomy series in 1966.

Scatliff took part in a variety of observing projects. From 1957-60, he was an active meteor observer for the IGY Project. He built his own 15-cm reflector, and housed it in an observatory originally used by Father Rivard at St. Adolphe, Manitoba. In 1966, Scatliff joined the AAVSO and took up solar observing using a telescope with an unsilvered mirror and a Herschel wedge. Later, sketching the planets became a special interest. As chairman of three Winnipeg Eclipse Committees, he chartered a train to Wivenhoe in 1963, arranged a trip for five members to Mexico in 1970, and chartered a DC-3 aircraft from which the 1972 Eclipse was seen over the Northwest Territories.

He owned a number of historical instruments which he donated to the Manitoba Museum of Man and Nature. His observatory (originally Father Rivard's) was given to the Winnipeg Centre 1964.

—Peter Broughton (from Looking Up)

Further Reading

• Obituary, WFP (2005)
• JRASC articles by John Scatliff