Background
He was the younger son of Thomas Watson (1672–1753), was born in August 1737 (baptised 25 September) at Heversham, Westmoreland, where his father, a clergyman, was master (1698–1737) of the grammar school.
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He was the younger son of Thomas Watson (1672–1753), was born in August 1737 (baptised 25 September) at Heversham, Westmoreland, where his father, a clergyman, was master (1698–1737) of the grammar school.
On 3 November 1754 he was admitted a sizar of Trinity College, Cambridge. He early made a good impression by a clever criticism of an argument in Clarke on the ‘Attributes, ’ and gained a scholarship on 2 May 1757, a year before the usual time, winning the special favour of the master, Robert Smith (1689–1768). He graduated B. A. in January 1759 as second wrangler. His examination entitled him to the first place, but ‘the talk about’ the injustice done him proved ‘more service than if’ he ‘had been made senior wrangler. ’
On 1 October 1760 he was elected fellow. In 1762 he proceeded M. A. , was made moderator (10 October) with John Jebb, and helped William Paley at a pinch by suggesting the insertion of a ‘non’ in his proposed thesis.
About the same time he had the offer of the post of chaplain to the factory at Bencoolen, in the Straits Settlements. " You are too good, " said the master of Trinity, " to die of drinking punch in the torrid zone "; and Watson, instead of becoming, as he had flattered himself, a great orientalist, remained at home to be elected professor of chemistry, a science of which he did not at the time possess the simplest rudiments.
Not the least of his services was to procure an endowment for the chair, which served as a precedent in similar instances. In 1771 he was appointed regius professor of divinity, but did not entirely renounce the study of chemistry.
In 1781 he followed this up with an introductory manual of Chemical Essays. In 1776 he answered Gibbon's chapters on Christianity, and had the honour of being one of the only two opponents whom Gibbon treated with respect.
He had always opposed the American War, and on the accession of Lord Shelburne to power in 1782 was made bishop of Llandaff, being permitted to retain his other preferments on account of the poverty of the see.
Shelburne expected great service from him as a pamphleteer, but Watson proved from the ministerial point of view a most impracticable prelate. He immediately brought forward a scheme for improving the condition of the poorer clergy by equalizing the incomes of the bishops, the reception of which at the time may be imagined, though it was substantially the same as that carried into effect by Lord Melbourne's government fifty years later.
Watson now found that he possessed no influence with the minister, and that he had destroyed his chance of the great object of his ambition, promotion to a better diocese.
Neglecting both his see and his professorship, to which latter he appointed a deputy described as highly incompetent, he withdrew to Calgarth Park, in his native county, where he occupied himself in forming plantations and in the improvement of agriculture. He also frequently came forward as a preacher and as a speaker in the House of Lords.
His advice to the government in 1787 is said to have saved the country £100, 000 a year in gunpowder. In 1796 he published, in answer to Thomas Paine, an Apology for the Bible, perhaps the best known of his numerous writings. Watson continued to exert his pen with vigour, and in general to good purpose, denouncing the slave trade, advocating the union with Ireland, and offering financial suggestions to Pitt, who seems to have frequently consulted him.
In 1798 his Address to the People of Great Britain, enforcing resistance to French arms and French principles, ran through fourteen editions, but estranged him from many old friends, who accused him, probably with injustice, of aiming to make his peace with the government.
Though querulous because of his non-preferment, De Quincey tells us that "his lordship was a joyous, jovial, and cordial host. "
He died on the 2nd of July 1816, having occupied his latter years in the composition and revision of an autobiography (published in 1817), which, with all its egotism and partiality, is a valuable work, and the chief authority for his life.
One of his discoveries led to the black-bulb thermometer. In 1768 he had published Inslilutiones metallurgicae, intended to give a scientific form to chemistry by digesting facts established by experiment into a connected series of propositions. In 1788 he was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
He contributed to the 'Philosophical Transactions' and to the 'Transactions' of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, of which he was elected an honorary member on 18 December 1782; these papers are included in the 'Chemical Essays. '
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( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)
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( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)
( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)
( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)
(FACSIMILE REPRODUCTION: 1785A collection of theological t...)
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The same year he offended the court by a Whig sefmon, but in 1779 became archdeacon of Ely.
Quotations: I buried myself, " he says, " in my laboratory, and in fourteen months read a course of chemical lectures to a very full audience. "
He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences from 1788 and a member of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society (1782).
In 1773, he married Dorothy Wilson, daughter of Edward Wilson of Dallam Tower and a descendant of the eponymous benefactor who had endowed Watson's scholarship.
