last imprisonment, though he continued without intermission to issue books upon the government ‘Index.’
In June 1837 he was on the committee appointed to draw up the necessary bills embodying the chartist demands. But he was opposed to the unwise violence exhibited by the agitators, and, on the other hand, to the overtures made to whig partisans whom he consistently denounced for their selfishness. He remained constant in devotion to chartist ‘principles’—‘the charter, the whole charter, and nothing but the charter’—and he was bitterly adverse to ‘peddling away the people's birthright for any mess of cornlaw pottage.’ In 1848 he was one of the conveners of the first public meeting to congratulate the French upon the revolution of that year. In the year previous he had given his adherence to the ‘Peoples' International League’ founded by Mazzini, of whom he was an admiring friend and correspondent.
A frugal, severe, and self-denying liver, a thin, haggard, thoughtful man, with an intellectual face and a grave yet gentle manner, Watson was an uncommon type of English tradesman. He lost considerably over his publishing, his object being profitable reading for uneducated people rather than personal gain. At the same time he cared for the correctness and decent appearance of his books, even the cheapest. ‘They were his children, he had none other.’ An unstamped and absolutely free press became the practical object of his later years.
About 1870 anxiety about the health of his wife, Eleanor Byerley, induced a serious decline of his own powers. He died at Burns College, Hamilton Road, Lower Norwood, on 29 Nov. 1874, and was buried in Norwood cemetery, where a grey granite obelisk erected by friends commemorates his ‘brave efforts to secure the rights of free speech.’ Among his comrades in the most active period of his life were Henry Hetherington [q. v.], William Lovett [q. v.], Thomas Wakley [q. v.], Thomas Slingsby Duncombe [q. v.], and Mr. Thomas Cooper.
A photographic portrait is prefixed to the appreciative ‘Memoir’ by W. J. Linton.
[James Watson: a Memoir, by W. J. Linton, privately printed, 1880; Linton's Memories, 1898, passim; A Report of the Trial of James Watson at the Clerkenwell Sessions House, 24 April 1823; Wallas's Life of Francis Place, 1888, pp. 272, 291, 365; Wheeler's Biogr. Dict. of Freethinkers, 1889, pp. 330–1; Stanton's Reforms and Reformers; Gammage's Hist. of Chartism; Holyoake's Life of R. Carlile, 1848, and Sixty Years of an Agitator's Life, ii. 161, 266.]
WATSON, JOHN (1520–1584), bishop of Winchester, was born in 1520 at Bengeworth, Worcestershire, and was educated at Oxford, where he graduated B.A. in June 1539, and was elected fellow of All Souls' in 1540. He proceeded M.A. on 25 June 1544, and for a time practised medicine, graduating M.D. at Oxford on 27 July 1575. Having taken holy orders, he became known as a reformer under Edward VI, and on 20 Nov. 1551 the council procured his appointment to the second prebend in Winchester Cathedral (Royal MSS. cxxiv. f. 159); he was admitted on 14 Dec. (Le Neve, iii. 34). He seems to have retained his prebend during Mary's reign, and added to it in 1554 the rectories of Kelshall, Hertfordshire, and Winchfield, Hampshire; on 7 Feb. 1557–8 he was collated to the chancellorship of St. Paul's Cathedral. His religious views were obviously of an accommodating nature, and he received further preferment when Elizabeth's deprivations created numerous vacancies. On 16 Nov. 1559 he was made archdeacon of Surrey, and as such sat in the convocation of 1562; he subscribed the articles of religion passed in that assembly and voted with the majority against the six articles designed to reduce the ritual of the church to the level of the protestant communions abroad (Strype, Annals, i. i. 488, 505, 512). Possibly he was the John Watson who was prebendary of Lincoln from 1560 to 1574. In 1568 he became rector of South Warnborough, Hampshire, and soon afterwards master of the hospital of St. Cross, Winchester. He was appointed dean of Winchester in 1570. In 1580 he was executor to Robert Horne (1519?–1580) [q. v.], bishop of Winchester, and succeeded him in that see, being elected on 29 June, confirmed on 16 Sept., and consecrated on the 18th. According to Strype, Watson's remissness encouraged the growth of recusancy in his diocese. He died on 23 Jan. 1583–4, and was buried on 17 Feb. in his cathedral. By his will (Lansd. MS. 982, f. 49), dated 23 Oct. 1583 and proved 22 July 1584, he left 40l. to All Souls' College, and other benefactions to scholars at Oxford and the poor at Evesham. He also left sums to his numerous brothers and sisters and their children, and Sir Francis Walsingham was ‘chief overseer’ of the will. By Baker, Fleay, and others Watson is credited with the authorship of ‘Absalom,’ a tragedy written by Thomas Watson (1513–1584) [q. v.], bishop of Lincoln.
Both bishops are confused by Strype and Burnet with John Watson (d. 1530), master of Christ's College, Cambridge, who was
