died at Calgarth Park on 4 July 1816, and was buried in Windermere church, where is a tablet to his memory. His portrait, by George Romney [q. v.], was engraved by William Thomas Fry [q. v.]; the cock of the hat and the pose of the figure give a military air to his refined and resolute countenance. Another portrait painted by Reynolds belongs to the family (Cat. Guelph Exhib. No. 186). He married at Lancaster (21 Dec. 1773) Dorothy (d. 11 April 1831, aged 81), eldest daughter of Edward Wilson of Dallam Tower, Westmoreland, and had six children. His son Richard was LL.B. (1813) of Trinity College, Cambridge, and prebendary of Llandaff (1813) and Wells (1815).
Watson's versatility and power of application were alike remarkable. What he did he did well, up to a certain point, and then turned to something else. His scientific work was sound and ingenious, if not brilliant, and careful and clear in its exposition of current views. He never turned to history, though he accepted membership (1807) in the 'Massachusetts Historical Society.' He was an admirable letter-writer, courtly, pointed, and cautious. Besides the works above mentioned he published:
- 'Visitation Articles for the Diocese of Llandaff,' 1784, 4to.
- 'Sermons … and Tracts,' 1788, 8vo (chiefly reprints).
- 'Thoughts on the intended Invasion,' 1803, 8vo.
- 'Miscellaneous Tracts,' 1815, 2 vols. 8vo (includes sermons, charges, political and economic tracts, chiefly reprints).
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 Dec. 1782; these papers are included in the 'Chemical Essays.'
[Anecdotes of the Life … written by himself … revised in 1814, published by his son Richard, 1817 (portrait), 2nd edit. 1818, 2 vols., and criticised in A Critical Examination, 1818 (partly reprinted from the Courier), and in the Quarterly Review, October 1817, Edinburgh Review, June 1818; London Review, October 1782, p. 277; British Public Characters, 1798, p. 251; [Mathias's] Pursuits of Literature, 1798, p. 181; cf. Mathias's Heroic Epistle, 1780; Wakefield's Memoirs, 1804, i. 356, 509, ii. 118; Meadley's Memoirs of Paley, 1809, p. 18; Thomson's Hist. of the Royal Soc. 1812; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. 1814 viii. 140, 1815 ix. 686; Biographical Dict. of Living Authors, 1816, p. 375; Gent. Mag. September 1816, p. 274; Annals of Philosophy (Thomson), April 1817, p. 257; Annual Biogr. 1817; Beloe's Sexagenarian, 1817, i. 59; Wordsworth's Description of the Lakes, 1820, p. 73; Rutt's Memoirs of Priestley, 1832, ii. 372; Le Neve's Fasti Eccles. Anglic. (Hardy), 1854, i. 197, 353, ii. 256, 268; Romilly's Graduati Cantabr. 1856; Atkinson's Worthies of Westmoreland, 1856, i. 185; De Quincey's Literary Reminiscences (Masson), ii. 195; Percy's Metallurgy, passim; Hunt's Religious Thought in England, 1873, iii. 351; Fitzjames Stephen's Horse Sabbaticæ, 1892, iii. 208; Rawnsley's Literary Associations of the English Lakes, 1894, ii. 75; Paine's Writings (Conway), 1896, iv. 258; extract from parish register of Heversham, per the Rev. T. M. Gilbert; information from the university registry, Cambridge, per C. S. Kenny, LL.D.; minutes of Manchester Literary and Philosophical Soc.; information respecting Watson's chemical work kindly furnished by P. J. Hartog, esq.]
WATSON, RICHARD (1781–1833), methodist divine, seventh of eighteen children of Thomas (d. 27 Nov. 1812, aged 70) and Ann Watson, was born at Barton-upon-Humber, Lincolnshire, on 22 Feb. 1781. His father was a saddler and a Calvinistic dissenter. Richard had a good education, beginning Latin in his seventh year under Matthew Barnett, curate of St. Peter's, Barton, and entering Lincoln grammar school in 1791. In 1795 he was apprenticed to William Bescoby, a joiner at Lincoln. He was precocious in stature (six feet two inches), in range of reading, and in power of address. Having spoken at a prayer meeting on 10 Feb. 1796, the day of his grandmother's death, he preached his first sermon at Boothby, near Lincoln, on 23 Feb., being just fifteen years old. Applying at the quarter sessions in Lincoln for registration under the Toleration Act, he was refused as an apprentice, but obtained registration on repairing to Newark for the purpose. Bescoby now voluntarily surrendered the apprenticeship indenture, and Watson removed to Newark as assistant to Thomas Cooper, then stationed there as Wesleyan preacher. At the conference of 1796 he was received on trial, and at that of 1801 he was received into full connexion as a travelling minister, having meantime been stationed at Ashby-de-la-Zouche, Castle Donington, and Derby, and published 'An Apology for the Methodists' (1800). Shortly after his full admission, resenting an unfounded report of his becoming an Arian, he withdrew from the Wesleyan connexion and from preaching. He tried secular business for a short time, but without success.
His marriage with the daughter of a local preacher in the methodist 'new connexion' [see Kilham, Alexander] led him into that body; in 1803 he was taken on probation, and in 1807 fully admitted to its ministry and appointed secretary of its con-
