Robert Dickie Watt, son of farmer John Watt and his wife Agnes Taylor, born Dickie, was educated at the University of Glasgow and obtained the degrees Master of Arts (MA, 1903) and Bachelor of Science (BSc, 1905). He studied some subjects at the West of Scotland Agricultural College and was awarded the national diplomas in dairying and in agriculture with first class honours in 1902 and 1905 respectively, winning a gold medal and a Carnegie Research Scholarship. After a period of research in agriculture and dairying at Rothamsted agricultural experiment station in Hertford, England, he published a paper "On the evolution of gas during churning" (Journal of Agricultural Science, 1907). Meanwhile he was appointed assistant chemist in the Division of Chemistry, Department of Agriculture of the Transvaal Colony in January 1907. The next year he became acting chief chemist and acting head of the division, following the return to England of chief chemist Herbert Ingle*, who's contract had expired.
During the next two years Watt published 15 articles in the Transvaal Agricultural Journal, including "Manurial experiments with maize and cowpeas", "The chemistry of milk", "Manurial experiments with potatoes", "Meaning and the value of the chemical analysis of soils", "Notes from the chemical laboratories", "The destruction of 'Witchweed'... by chemical means", "The food of plants", and "Artificial manures or fertilizers". He left South Africa to take up an appointment as the first professor of agriculture at the University of Sydney, a post he held from 1910 to his retirement in 1946. He was a member of the Australian National Research Council from 1919 to 1954 and was elected president of the Royal Society of New South Wales for 1926. In addition to articles in agricultural journals he was the author of "The influence of phosphatic fertilizers on root development" (Report of the Australian Association for the Advancement of Science, 1913) and a book on the history of Australian agriculture, The romance of the Australian land industries (1955) He was knighted in 1960 and was married to Marjory Dymock Forsyth, with whom he had a daughter.
