Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 60.djvu/25

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Watson
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Watson

of St. Augustine, Canterbury, was founded in 1845, he was one of the council. He retained the treasurership of the Additional Curates' Society until he approached his eighty-third year. He died at Clapton, 30 Jan. 1855, and was buried on 7 Feb. in the family vault at Hackney.

Watson was an interesting link between the high-churchmen before, and the high-churchmen after, the Oxford movement. Dr. Pusey, after several interviews with him at Brighton in 1842-3, wrote to him: 'One had become so much the object of suspicion, that I cannot say how cheering it was to be recognised by you as carrying on the same torch which we had received from yourself and from those of your generation who had remained faithful to the old teaching.' But Watson did not sympathise entirely with the Oxford movement; there were many points on which he entirely disagreed. He gratefully recognised, however, its good effects, and never lost his confidence in its future. Keble's 'Christian Year' was one of his favourite books, and he was an admirer and constant reader of Newman's sermons. He was too diffident to write anything on his own account; his only publication of note was an edition of 'Hele's Sacred Offices' (a book of devotions which he always used himself) in 1825. This had a large circulation on its first appearance, and a still larger on its republication in 1842. There is an excellent miniature of Watson by Sir William Ross.

[Churton's Memoir of Joshua Watson, 1861-3, 2 vols.; Overton's English Church in the Nineteenth Century; Life of Christopher Wordsworth, Bishop of Lincoln; private recollections of conversations with Bishop Christopher Wordsworth.]

WATSON, JUSTLY (1710?–1757), lieutenant-colonel royal engineers, son of Colonel Jonas Watson, royal artillery, by his wife Miriam, was born about 1710.

The father, Jonas Watson (1663–1741), served over fifty years in the artillery, and after distinguishing himself, first in the campaigns of William III in Ireland and in Flanders, and then in those of Marlborough, succeeded to the command of the artillery of the train. He was promoted to be lieutenant-colonel on 17 March 1727, and commanded the artillery at the siege of Gibraltar in that year. He was employed in the command of the artillery on several expeditions until he was killed at the siege of Carthagena on 30 March 1741. He left a widow, Miriam, and a family of children. His widow was granted a pension of 40l. per annum in acknowledgment of her husband's services.

Justly Watson entered the ordnance train as a cadet gunner about 1726, and served during the siege of Gibraltar in 1727 under his father, who commanded the ordnance train there. On 13 June 1732 he received a warrant as practitioner-engineer, and was promoted to be sub-engineer on 1 Nov. 1734. He received a commission as ensign in Harrison's foot on 3 Feb. 1740, and in June was appointed to the ordnance train of the conjoint expedition, under Lord Cathcart and Sir Chaloner Ogle, to join Vice-admiral Vernon in the West Indies. He spent some months in the Isle of Wight in instructing the men of the train, and sailed on 26 Oct., arriving at Jamaica on 9 Jan. 1741.

Watson accompanied the expedition under General Wentworth, who had succeeded to the command on Cathcart's death, to Carthagena in South America, Jonas Moore [q.v.] being chief engineer, and took part in the operations from 9 March to 16 April, including the siege and assault on 25 March of Fort St. Louis, when Watson accompanied the successful storming party, the attack on other works in Boca-Chica harbour [see Vernon, Edward], and the assault of Fort Lazar, where he so greatly distinguished himself in the unfortunate affair of 9 April that he was promoted on the following day by Wentworth to be lieutenant in Harrison's regiment of foot for his gallantry.

Watson returned to Jamaica on 19 May 1741. He was promoted to be engineer-extraordinary on 11 Aug., when he was serving in the expedition to Cuba. He returned to Jamaica in November. In March 1742 he sailed from Jamaica in the abortive expedition, under Vernon and Wentworth, to attack Panama, landing at Portobello. Watson made a plan of the town, harbour, and fortifications of Portobello, which is in the king's library in the British Museum. On his return to Jamaica, and the recall of the expedition to England in September, he took charge of the works at Jamaica as chief engineer there, and his plans of Charles Fort and the Port Royal peninsula are in the archives of the war office.

In 1743 he visited Darien and Florida, under special orders, and made surveys and reports as to their defence. His plan of the harbour of Darien and adjacent country on the Isthmus, where Paterson's Scottish company settled in 1698, and his survey in two sheets of the coast from Fort William, near St. Juan river, to Mosquito river, with a plan of the town of St. Augustine, are in the British Museum. Watson returned to Jamaica, and was promoted to be engineer in ordinary on 8 March 1744. He sent to the