William Livingstone Watson

William Livingstone Watson (Kinross, Scotland, 1835-Ayton, Perthshire, Scotland, May 1903) was a Scottish East India merchant and an astronomer.

William Livingstone Watson, painted by Stanhope Forbes

Early life

Watson was originally intended for a career in the church but turned instead to the law and thence to business.[1] He was educated at the University of Edinburgh and the University of Glasgow.[2]

Career

Watson joined a Glasgow firm of East India merchants, James Finlay & Co., in 1855. He became a partner in this firm in 1865, and in 1876 moved to London, where he was their representative. He also participated in a number of other business activities, serving for many years as chairman of the London board of the Royal Insurance Company, and also on a number of other boards, including the Merchants’ Marine Insurance Company, the Agra Bank, the Indo-China Steam Navigation Company, the Assam_Bengal_Railway, and the Clan Line.[3]

Astronomy

In 1888 Watson bought Ayton House in Perthshire, Scotland, and with it an observatory and one of the United Kingdom's largest telescopes, the 12-inch "great refractor" that has been exhibited at the Great Exhibition in 1851. He worked on this telescope with astronomers Ludwig Becker and Ralph Copeland.[4] He was elected a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1892.[5]

Other activities

Watson was also a Justice of the Peace and a member of the Perthshire County Council.[6] He was a devout Free Church Christian and a strict Sabbatarian, banning non-religious books and children's toys on Sundays.[7] He worked with other temperance campaigners for the introduction of the Gothenburg System for controlling the consumption of alcoholic spirits.[8]

Personal life

Watson married Elizabeth Lindsay Seton, the daughter of George Seton, a genealogist and historian, in 1878, but his wife suffered from ill health after 1881, and their son R. W. Seton-Watson, the political activist and historian, later recalled that he had never seen his mother walking or standing.[9] The household was run by Watson's sister Jeanie and then by a cousin, Mary Lorimer.[10]

gollark: School but instead of reading random poems you memorise 'life skills' would be quite ae ae ae, as they say.
gollark: If I were to redesign school, it would be much less regimented (you would not be grouped by year etc.), more flexible (an actually sane schedule and more/earlier choice of subjects), and focus on more general skills (not overly specific reading of books, or learning procedures for specific maths things, or that sort of thing). Additionally, more project-based work and more group stuff.
gollark: Those are specific uses of some of those things, yes. Which is why those are important. Although programming isn't intensely mathy and interest is trivial.
gollark: I assume you mean interpersonal? School is really bad for that as it stands because you're artificially segmented into people of ~exactly the same age in a really weird environment.
gollark: *Ideally*, at least, school works as a place to learn things from those who know them well and discuss it with interested peers.

References
  1. Hanson, Susan (December 2014). "British Radicals Knowledge of, and Attitudes to Austria-Hungary 1890-1914". The Meijo Review. 15 (3): 1–76.
  2. "Obituary Notice: Watson, William Livingstone". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 64: 295–96. 1904. doi:10.1093/mnras/64.4.295.
  3. "Obituary Notice: Watson, William Livingstone". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 64: 295–96. 1904. doi:10.1093/mnras/64.4.295.
  4. Seton-Watson, Hugh; Seton-Watson, Christopher (1981). The making of a new Europe : R.W. Seton-Watson and the last years of Austria-Hungary. London: Methuen. ISBN 9780416747300.
  5. "Obituary Notice: Watson, William Livingstone". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 64: 295–96. 1904. doi:10.1093/mnras/64.4.295.
  6. "Obituary Notice: Watson, William Livingstone". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 64: 295–96. 1904. doi:10.1093/mnras/64.4.295.
  7. Seton-Watson, Hugh; Seton-Watson, Christopher (1981). The making of a new Europe : R.W. Seton-Watson and the last years of Austria-Hungary. London: Methuen. ISBN 9780416747300.
  8. "Obituary Notice: Watson, William Livingstone". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 64: 295–96. 1904. doi:10.1093/mnras/64.4.295.
  9. Seton-Watson, Hugh; Seton-Watson, Christopher (1981). The making of a new Europe : R.W. Seton-Watson and the last years of Austria-Hungary. London: Methuen. ISBN 9780416747300.
  10. Hanson, Susan (December 2014). "British Radicals Knowledge of, and Attitudes to Austria-Hungary 1890-1914". The Meijo Review. 15 (3): 1–76.
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