Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 60.djvu/53

 Franklin, John Robertson (1712–1776) [q. v.], and Benjamin Wilson [q. v.]; they reported favourably in 1772.

Watson's electrical experiments became famous outside scientific circles. George III (then Prince of Wales), the Duke of Cumberland, and other fashionable people went to see them at his house in Aldersgate Street.

In 1750 (loc. cit. xlvi. 584) Watson communicated to the Royal Society ‘several papers concerning a new semi-metal called platina.’ The credit of the introduction of platinum has on this account been ascribed to Watson, and also to his namesake, Richard Watson [q. v.], bishop of Llandaff. The first and most important of the papers is by William Brownrigg [q. v.], who had himself been given the specimens of ‘platina di Pinto’ from the Spanish West Indies by Charles Wood nine years previously, and Brownrigg deserves most credit in the matter, Watson's paper being merely a commentary on Brownrigg's. In 1757 (Gent. Mag. xxvii. 6) Watson made the obvious but important practical suggestion that instead of covering the lead water pipes, used to supply houses, with horse-dung, to prevent them from freezing, these should be provided with two cocks, so as to cut off the supply and empty them during frost.

The most important of Watson's botanical papers is that on the Star-puff ball (geaster) which first drew the attention of continental botanists to his work (Phil. Trans. xliii. 234, read 20 Dec. 1744). Many of his botanical papers are historical summaries, showing great knowledge and perspicacity. On 7 May 1752 (ib. xlvii. 445) he read a long account of a manuscript treatise by De Peyssonel, proving that coral was of animal and not vegetable origin, which had been communicated to the Paris Academy of Sciences in 1727, but neglected. In 1754 (ib. xlviii. 615) he recognised that the holly is ‘polygamous.’ In the ‘Gentleman's Magazine,’ 1754, p. 555, Watson published over his initials a notice of Linnæus's Species plantarum, in which the author set forth his new method of nomenclature, and pronounced it to be the ‘masterpiece of the most compleat naturalist the world has ever seen,’ but nevertheless criticises certain details. In the following year (Gent. Mag. xxv. 317) Linnæus replied to his anonymous critic, whom he calls ‘in re herbaria solidissimum et honestissimum, simul et mitissimum judicem.’ Watson did much to introduce the Linnæan system into England. He wrote a number of medical memoirs dealing with cases of poisoning by fungi, &c.; but his chief medical work deals with epidemics. In December 1762 he published (Phil. Trans. lii. 646) a letter to his friend John Huxham [q. v.] on the ‘catarrhal disorder’ (influenza) of May 1762, and the dysentery that followed in the autumn. In February 1763 (loc. cit. liii. 10) he published an interesting cure of severe muscular rigidity by means of electricity. He published various papers in the ‘London Medical Observations’ (iii. 35, iv. 78, 132) ‘on putrid measles’ (see, Epidemics in Britain, ii. 705, iv. 321). In 1768 Watson published as a pamphlet ‘An Account of a Series of Experiments instituted with a view of ascertaining the most successful Method of inoculating the Smallpox.’ Watson found that preparatory drugs had no effect, that matter from natural or inoculated smallpox produced the same result, and that it was inadvisable to inoculate children under three years of age.

A portrait of Watson in oils, by L. F. Abbot, given by the sitter, and an engraving therefrom by Thornthwaite (1767) are in the possession of the Royal Society. He had a massive though not handsome face, with highly arched eyebrows and large orbits.

Watson left one son, and a daughter, married to Edward Beadon, rector of North Stoneham, Hampshire, brother of Richard Beadon [q. v.], bishop of Bath and Wells. The son is probably to be identified with the Author:William Watson (1744-1824) (1744–1825?) jun., M.D., born on 28 Aug. or 8 Sept. 1744. He was knighted on 6 March 1796 (, Hist. of the Royal Society), elected F.R.S. on 10 Dec. 1767, and admitted on 19 May 1768. He contributed a paper on the blue shark to the ‘Philosophical Transactions’ (lxviii. 789). He died about 1825.

[Clark's Georgian Era, iii. 166; Chalmers's Biogr. Dict.; Gent. Mag. 1787, i. 454; Robinson's Reg. of Merchant Taylors' School, ii. 68; Poggendorff's Biogr. Literar. Handwörterbuch, 1863 passim; Pulteney's Sketches of the Progress of Botany in England, 1790, ii. 295–340 (the most complete memoir; probably written from personal knowledge); Munk's Coll. of Phys. ii. 298; Thomson's Hist. of the Royal Soc., 1812, App. p. xlii; Record of the Royal Soc., 1897; Creighton's Epidemics in Britain, 1894, ii. passim; Maty's Index to the Phil. Trans. vols. i–lxx.; Watson's own papers; Priestley's Hist. of Electricity, 5th edit. 1794, passim; Hoppe's Geschichte der Elektricität, passim; Wiedemann's Lehre von Elektricität, passim; information from Prof. Marcus Hartog of Queen's Coll., Cork.]  WATSON, WILLIAM HENRY (1796–1860), baron of the exchequer, born at Bamborough in 1796, was the son of John Watson, captain in the 76th foot, by Eliza-