Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/437

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A T W A T 411 sides of Black River, 7 miles above its mouth, and is 140 j miles north-west of Albany. It is laid out rather irregu larly, with GO miles of streets, is supplied with water by pumping, water-power being used, and is well sewered. The population in 1880 was 10,697, including 2444 of foreign birth. The river at this point is 60 yards wide. It falls 112 feet in two miles, and flows through the city in a succession of rapids, furnishing a magnificent water- power to the numerous paper, woollen, and cotton mills and machine shops which line its banks. The first settlement was made in 1800, and the town had a rapid growth, from the start. The city was chartered in 1869. WATERTOWN, a city in Jefferson and Dodge counties, "Wisconsin, United States, is situated upon both sides of Rock river, in a rich farming region. Its population in 1880 was 7883, 3072 of them of foreign birth. The river furnishes a valuable water-power for extensive manufac tures. Watertown contains the North- Western University, a Lutheran institution, and a Roman Catholic seminary. About two-thirds of the present population are Germans or their direct descendants. WATERWORKS. See WATER-SUPPLY. WATFORD, an ancient market town of Herts, is situated on a ridge of gravel overlooking the river Colne, on the Grand Junction Canal and on the London and North- Western Railway, branches of which here diverge to St Albans and to Rickmansworth, 8 miles south-west of St Albans and 17f north-west of London by rail, the distance by road from Charing Cross being 15 miles. It consists chiefly of one spacious street, about li- mile in length, running north-westwards from the river. A bridge con nects it with Bushey on the south side of the river, a suburb chiefly of villas. The church, dedicated to St Mary, with embattled tower, and spire 100 feet high, was restored in 1871 at a cost of 11,000. The other principal public buildings are the masonic hall (1873), the public library and school of art, a building of brick in the Gothic style, erected in 1873-74 at the cost of 3400, the county court and sessions-house, the agricultural hall, and the literary institute. Among the benevolent institutions are the London Orphan Asylum, founded in 1813, rebuilt in 1870 in the Elizabethan style, and having accommodation for 600 children ; the almshouses of the Salters Company, London, and the almshouses erected in 1876 by the countess of Essex for superannuated servants. There is a cemetery of 14 acres laid out in 1858. For the water-supply of the town a reservoir capable of containing one million gallons has lately been constructed. The town possesses corn-mills, breweries, malt-kilns, and an iron foundry. The population of the urban sanitary district (area 530 acres) in 1871 was 7461, and in 1881 it was 10,073. In 1882 the area of the urban sanitary district was extended to 871 acres; the population of that area in 1881 was 12,162. Watford is not mentioned in Domesday, being then included in the manor of Cashio, belonging to the abbey of St Albans. The town received the grant of a market from Henry I. When the abbey of St Albans was dissolved in 1549, Watford fell to the crown. In 1609 it came into the possession of Thomas Marbury, and it has belonged to the earls of Essex since 1767. WATSON, RICHARD (1737-1816), bishop of Llandaff, was born in August 1737 at Heversham, in Westmorland, and was the son of the master of the grammar school of that place. He was entirely educated by his father, Avho sent him in 1754 to Trinity College, Cambridge, with "a considerable stock of classical learning, a spirit of per severing industry, and an obstinate provincial accent." He was elected a fellow of Trinity in 1760, and about the same time had the offer of the post of chaplain to the factory at Bencoolen. "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. " I buried myself," he says, " in my laboratory, and in fourteen months read a course of chemical lectures to a very full audience." 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 became a candidate for the regius pro fessorship of divinity, and at the age of thirty-four gained what he calls " the first place for honour in the university," " and," he adds, " exclusive of the mastership of Trinity College, I have made it the first for profit. I found it not worth 330 a year ; it is now (1814) worth 1000 at the least." He did not entirely renounce the study of chemistry : in 1768 he had published Institutiones Metal lurgies, intended to give a scientific form to chemistry by digesting facts established by experiment into a connected series of propositions. In 1781 he followed this up with a volume of Chemical Essays, which Davy told De Quincey remained as late as 1813, after all recent discoveries, unsurpassed as a manual of introductory discipline. But on the day on which he composed his preface he burned all his chemical manuscripts, and never returned to the subject. His course as professor of divinity was no less decisive. "I reduced the study of divinity into as narrow a compass as I could, for I determined to study nothing but my Bible." He produced several anonymous pamphlets on the liberal side in the subscription con troversy and other topics of the day, and some sermons, one of which was thought likely to have involved him in a prosecution, but which, Dunning said, contained "just such treason as ought to be preached once a month at St James s." It is said to have prevented his obtaining the provostship of Trinity College, Dublin. 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. In 1781 he was prostrated with a malignant fever, from the effects of which he never wholly recovered, and which served as an excuse for that neglect of many duties which remains the chief stain upon his character. He had always opposed the American War, and when the accession of Lord Shelburne to power in 1782 afforded the then unfrequent opportunity of advanc ing a Liberal in politics and religion to a bishopric, Watson was made bishop of Llandaff, being permitted to retain his other preferments on account of the poverty of the see. Shelburne, he says, expected great service from him as a pamphleteer, but Watson proved from the ministerial point of view a most impracticable prelate. He imme diately brought forward a scheme for improving the con dition 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 professor ship, to which latter he appointed a deputy described as highly incompetent, he withdrew to Calgarth Park, in his native county, where he occupied himself largely in form ing plantations and the improvement of agriculture. He nevertheless frequently came forward as a preacher and a speaker in the House of Lords, but his only very con spicuous appearance before the public was his warm support of the prince of Wales s unqualified claim to the regency on the insanity of the king in 1788, which com pleted his disgrace at court. In 1796 he published his

Apology for the Bible, in answer to Thomas Paine, at