WATSON, Sir William Henry (1796-1860), of 38 Wilton Crescent, Belgrave Square, London

Born into a military family at Bamburgh in 1796 Watson was, upon his father’s death on service in November 1811 ‘left an orphan in the establishment at Sandhurst’, entering the army aged 15.1Hansard, 20 Mar. 1855, vol. 137, c. 902. He served in the Peninsula from 1812 and, shortly after exchanging to the 6^th (Inniskilling) dragoons, fought at Waterloo and entered Paris with the allied army. He entered Lincoln’s Inn as a student in 1817 and, while subsequently practising as a special pleader (1820-32), authored two standard professional works, A Treatise on Arbitration and Award (1825) and A Treatise on the Law relating to the Office and Duty of Sheriff (1827).2F. Boase, Modern Biography, iii (1901), 1230-1. See A Treatise on Arbitration and Award (1825) and A Treatise on the Law relating to the Office and Duty of Sheriff (1827). By the time he was called to the bar in 1832 he had married twice, firstly to Anne Armstrong, the sister of the great industrialist William Armstrong, who died in 1828, and secondly to Mary Hollist.

Whilst on the Northern circuit he acquired a reputation as a popular and dependable advocate, distinguished ‘by his hearty and forcible style of address’.3E. Foss, The Judges of England; with Sketches of their Lives …, ix (1864), 291. He was returned for the small Irish borough of Kinsale at the 1841 general election on the Liberal interest and entered parliament as a self-proclaimed Whig. Initially an opponent of free trade, he nevertheless voted for the repeal of the corn laws in 1846.4Dod MS, iii, 1123; Dod’s Parliamentary Companion (1847), 254; Freeman’s Journal, 24 July 1841. In debate, he confined himself largely to legal matters, first speaking on the administration of justice bill regarding the appellant jurisdiction of the court of chancery, and he was later to make a thorough report on the abuses of the chancery system.5Hansard, 24 Sept. 1841, vol. 59, cc. 742-3, 753-4; PP 1844 (564) iv. 521; Freeman’s Journal, 10 Feb. 1852. During 1842-4, Watson assisted with bills on Irish grand jury presentments and the recovery of small debts.6PP 1843 (262) iii. 1; PP 1843 (369) iii. 9; PP 1843 (232) ii. 5; PP 1844 (9) i. 697. He also brought his legal expertise to bear on legal aspects of election petitions, the treatment of witnesses, the conduct of judges, and the jurisdiction of church vestries.7Hansard, 16 Feb. 1842, vol. 60, cc. 536-7; 18 Feb. 1842, vol. 59, c. 646; 10 June 1842, vol. 63, c. 1455; 21 Feb. 1843, vol. 66, cc. 1134-5; 19 June 1844, vol. 75, cc. 1103-4. He was particularly critical of ecclesiastical courts, which he later denounced as ‘courts of injustice’, full of ‘trumpery and rubbish’ and, in 1856, helped prepare a bill to abolish them.8Hansard, 31 May 1844, vol. 75, cc. 126-7; 20 May 1856, vol. 142, cc. 464; 26 June 1856, vol. 142, c. 2041; PP 1856 (135) iv. 419. In 1846-7, he moved for and participated in an inquiry into the collection of fees by the courts of law and equity, and sat on the select committee on legal education.9Hansard, 7 May 1846, vol. 86, cc. 176-84; 4 May 1847, vol. 92, cc. 380-3; PP 1847 (643) viii. 25; PP 1846 (686) x. 1. He also commented on questions of international law, such as Danish claims arising from the war of 1807, and the laws of marriage.10Hansard, 30 Apr. 1846, vol. 85, cc. 1306-11; 13 May 1847, vol. 92, c. 761.

Watson was outspoken about what he considered illiberal or repressive legislation. A stern critic of the Irish arms bill of 1843 which, he told the House, placed ‘8,000,000 of their fellow citizens beyond the pale of the constitution’, he argued that concession was the only means of undercutting the repeal movement. In May 1846, he warned the House against the advisability of proceeding criminally against William Smith O’Brien for refusing to serve on a select committee.11Hansard, 30 May 1843, vol. 69, cc. 1123-5; 22 May 1846, vol. 86, cc. 996-7. Upon a petition of the Italian revolutionary, Joseph Mazzini (1844), he criticised the ‘unconstitutional and unpopular power’ under which private letters could be opened by the Post Office and called upon the Government to state on what law they rested their claim to examine post by general warrant.12Hansard, 14 June 1844, vol. 75, cc. 905-6; 21 Feb. 1845, vol. 77, cc. 957-67; 28 Feb. 1845, vol. 78, cc. 175-7. He also declared that a provision of the dog stealing bill of 1845, making an offender liable to transportation for seven years, was ‘too much for stealing all the dogs in England’. That the offence was ‘already punishable with fine, imprisonment and whipping’ was, he added, sufficient ‘to protect the pug-dogs of the old ladies of England’.13Hansard, 11 June 1845, vol. 81, c. 385; 25 June 1845, vol. 81, c. 1188.

Though a ‘sincere Protestant’ and a member of ‘the low-church-party’, in 1843 Watson became involved in the movement to repeal the remaining ‘penal laws’ affecting Roman Catholics, which he described to the House as ‘a deep stain on our Statute book’.14Hull Packet, 11 Aug. 1854; Hansard, 6 May 1846, vol. 86, c. 150; 5 Feb. 1846, vol. 83, c. 495, and see B. Ward, The Sequel to Catholic Emancipation 1830-1850, ii (1915), 72-5. In 1845, he introduced a bill to advance upon a measure passed the previous year, both of which had been prepared by Thomas Chisholm Anstey.15PP 1845 (50) v. 279; Hansard, 20 Feb. 1845, vol. 77, c. 833; 30 Apr. 1845, vol. 79, c. 1441-2; 28 May 1845, vol. 80, cc. 942-3; 9 July 1845, vol. 82, cc. 278-82; Ward, Sequel to Catholic Emancipation, 75-6. The bill, which aimed to remove the restrictive clauses of the Emancipation Act of 1829, was unsuccessful, as was a second bill he introduced the following year. In spite of a milder measure being carried by the government in August 1846, Watson again tried but failed to steer a stronger bill of Anstey’s through the Commons in 1847, in the process recounting at length the history of English penal enactments against Catholics from the reign of Edward VI.16PP 1846 (32) iii. 589; PP 1846 (274) iii. 597; PP 1847 (53) iii. 623; Hansard, 24 June 1846, vol. 87, cc. 918-9; 9 Feb. 1847, vol. 89, cc.1059-60, 1061; 14 Apr. 1847, vol. 91, cc. 804-7; 24 Feb. 1847, vol. 90, cc. 451-61; Ward, Sequel to Catholic Emancipation, 79-82.

Although Watson spoke on behalf of Kinsale’s fishing industry in 1847, arguing that railway access to markets might increase revenues by more than a factor of ten, and drew attention to the overcrowding of Kinsale’s workhouse during the debate on the Irish poor relief bill.17Hansard, 13 May 1847, vol. 92, c. 773; 31 May 1847, vol. 92, c. 1337. However, acting on the advice of his political agents, he had not visited his Irish constituency from the time of his election, and was defeated by a free-spending Conservative opponent at the 1847 general election. He declined to offer again when his opponent was subsequently unseated in February 1848, probably having been prevailed upon to leave the way open for the undersecretary of the colonies, Benjamin Hawes.18HP Commons, 1832-68: ‘Kinsale’.

In July 1852 Watson contested Newcastle-upon-Tyne, after a feud between Liberal factions on the town council over the selection of a second candidate led to his nomination. Advocating religious freedom and the abolition of the income tax, Watson directed his opposition towards the sitting member, Thomas Headlam. Yet while his independent stance and inconsistent record of support for Russell’s administration garnered him a large number of Conservative votes, his failure to attract Liberal support left him at the bottom of the poll.19Leeds Mercury, 15 Mar. 1860; HP Commons, 1832-68: ‘Newcastle-upon-Tyne’. He was, however, returned for Hull at another by-election in August 1854 on a platform of extended suffrage, the ballot, free trade and education reform. Upon returning to the Commons, Watson focused his attention chiefly on military affairs.20Hull Packet, 11 Aug. 1854. Despite having had strong reservations about the wisdom of Britain’s involvement in the Crimea, he lent his full support to the government’s prosecution of the war during the debate on the enlistment of foreigners bill in which, drawing upon his experience of serving alongside the German Legion, he recommended the enlistment of seasoned troops from the small German principalities. He recommended a strict blockade of Russia’s Black Sea ports, arguing that the admiralty’s failure to act had harmed the interests of Hull merchants concerned in the linseed trade.21Hansard, 19 Dec. 1854, vol. 136, cc. 539-46; 20 Feb. 1855, vol. 136, cc. 1704-6. He also quizzed the prime minister, Lord Palmerston, over the evacuation of patients from the military hospital at Scutari and recommended the recognition of the services of medical officers in Crimean hospitals. With regard to the army, he criticised the ‘scandalous system by which nepotism and patronage monopolised those places which merit alone should possess’ and, pointing to ‘the lamentably deficient’ education of staff officers, called for a select committee inquiry into the Royal Military College, Sandhurst.22Hansard, 19 Feb. 1855, vol. 136, cc. 1511-2; 6 July 1855, vol. 139, cc. 542-3; 20 Mar. 1855, vol. 137, cc. 902-3.

By now Watson was regarded as ‘a staunch Liberal’, who was in favour of parliamentary reform, the admission of Jews to parliament and national education.23Leeds Mercury, 15 Mar. 1860; Dod’s Parliamentary Companion (1855), 292-3. In June 1855 he introduced a bill to change the modes of altering acts of parliament and sat on the select committee on public prosecutors.24PP 1854-55 (164) i. 25; PP 1854-55 (481) xii. 1; PP 1856 (206) vii. 347. The following year he served on the committee on local shipping duties, and firmly opposed the mercantile law amendment bill because it proposed to repeal the statute of frauds.25Hansard, 4 Feb. 1856, vol. 140, c. 177; 8 Apr. 1856, c. 680-1; PP 1856 (332) (332-I) xii. 1, 723; Hansard, 26 June 1856, vol. 142, c. 2045. He also addressed the question of law reform, arguing that ‘the present condition of the statute law was an utter disgrace to the country’ and criticised the criminal law commission’s failure to consolidate the criminal law.26Hansard, 19 Feb. 1856, vol. 140, cc. 996-8; 2 June 1856, vol. 142, cc. 872-3.

During his time in parliament, Watson’s legal career had flourished. Having been made a QC and bencher of Lincoln’s Inn in 1843, he vacated his seat when he was appointed as baron of exchequer on 5 November 1856.27The Times, 7 Nov. 1856. He was knighted shortly afterwards. His judicial career was, however, cut short when, at the conclusion of his charge to the grand jury at Welshpool on 12 March 1860, he was seized with ‘a serious apoplexy’. He died the next day and was buried at the new church in Welshpool.28W. Carr, rev. N.G. Jones, ‘Watson, Sir William Henry’, Oxford DNB, vol. 57, 683; Leeds Mercury, 15 Mar. 1860. He was succeeded by his eldest son, John William Watson (1828-1909) who did not enter politics.