9477, of whom 2087 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 11,458. It is served by the Wiscasset, Waterville & Farmington railway, and two lines of the Maine Central railroad. The Ticonic Falls in the river afford excellent water-power, which is used in the manufacture of cotton and woollen goods, &c. In Winslow (pop. in 1910, 2709), on the opposite side of the river and connected by bridges with Waterville, are large paper and pulp mills. Waterville has a Carnegie library and is the seat of Colby College (Baptist), which was incorporated as the Maine Literary and Theological Institution in 1813, was renamed Waterville College in 1821, was named Colby University in 1867, in honour of Gardner Colby (1810–1879), a liberal benefactor, and received its present name in 1899. Since 1871 women have been admitted on the same terms as men. In 1910 the college library contained 51,000 volumes. Waterville was settled about the middle of the 18th century. It was a part of the township of Winslow from 1771 to 1802, when it was incorporated as a separate township. It was first chartered as a city in 1883.
WATERVLIET, a city of Albany county, New York, U.S.A., on the W. bank of the Hudson river opposite Troy and about 5 m. N . of Albany. Pop. (1890) 12,967; (1900) 14,321, of whom 2754 were foreign-born and 59 were negroes; (1910 census) 15,074. Watervliet is served by the Delaware & Hudson railway and by steamboat lines on the Hudson river, and is connected with Troy by bridges and ferries, and with Albany, Troy, Cohoes and Schenectady by electric lines. The Erie and Champlain canals have their terminals a short distance above the city. The city has a city hall and a public library. Watervliet is situated in a good farming country, but is chiefly a manufacturing place; in 1905 its factory products were valued at $1,884,802 (25% more than in 1900), not including the product of the United States Arsenal (1807), on the river, an important manufactory of heavy ordnance. The place was originally called West Troy and was incorporated as a village in 1836; in 1897 it was chartered as a city under its present name; at the same time the township of Watervliet in which it was situated was divided into the townships of Colonie and Green Island. In 1776 the first settlement of Shakers (q.v.) in America was made in the township by “Mother Ann” Lee and her followers, who named it Niskayuna. Here “Mother Ann” died and is buried.
WATFORD, a market town in the Watford parliamentary division of Hertfordshire, England, 17½ m. N.W. of London by the London & North-Western railway. Pop. of urban district (1891) 17,063; (1901) 29,327. It lies on the small river Colne in a pleasant undulating and well wooded district. The church of St Mary, with embattled tower and spire, is of various dates, and contains good examples of monumental work of the early 17th century; and in the churchyard is buried Robert Clutterbuck (d. 1831), author of the History and Antiquities of the County of Hertford. There are several modern churches and chapels. The chief building within the town is the Watford Public Library and School of Art. There are large breweries, also corn-mills, malt-kilns and an iron foundry. Bushey, on the south side of the Colne, lying for the most part high above it, is a suburb, chiefly residential, with a station on the North-Western line. The church of St James, extensively restored by Sir Gilbert Scott, is Early English in its oldest part, the chancel. Here a school of art was founded by Sir Hubert von Herkomer, R.A., but it was closed in 1904, and subsequently revived in other hands. Other institutions are the Royal Caledonian Asylum and the London Orphan Asylum. At Aldenham, 2 m. N.E., the grammar school founded in 1599 now ranks as one of the minor English public schools.
WATKIN, SIR EDWARD WILLIAM, 1st Bart. (1819-1901), English railway manager, was born in Manchester on the 26th of September 1819. He was the son of Absalom Watkin, a merchant in Manchester, and was employed in his father's counting-house, ultimately becoming a partner; but in 1845 he was appointed secretary of the Trent Valley railway, which was soon afterwards absorbed by the London & North-Western Company. He next joined the Manchester & Sheffield Company, of which he became general manager and then chairman, subsequently combining with the duties thus entailed the chairmanship of the South-Eastern (1867) and of the Metropolitan (1872). His connexion with these three railways was maintained to within a short time of his death, and they formed the material of one of his most ambitious schemes—the establishment of a through route under one management from Dover to Manchester and the north. This was the end he had in view in his successful fight for the extension of the Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire railway (now the Great Central) to London; and his persistent advocacy of the Channel tunnel (q.v.) between Dover and Calais was really a further development of the same idea, for its construction would have enabled through trains to be run from Paris to Lancashire and Scotland, via the East London (of which also he was for a time chairman) and the Metropolitan. The latter scheme, however, failed to obtain the necessary public and political support. Other projects had even less success. His plans for a tunnel between Scotland and Ireland under the North Channel, and for a ship canal across Ireland from Galway to Dublin, did not come to anything; while the great tower at Wembley Park (near Harrow), intended to surpass the Eiffel Tower at Paris, stopped at an early stage. It was in the realms of railway politics that Watkin showed to best advantage; for the routine work of administration pure and simple he had no aptitude. He entered parliament as a Liberal, and after representing Stockport from 1864 to 1868, sat as member for Hythe for twenty-one years from 1874, becoming a Liberal-Unionist at the time of the Home Rule split, and subsequently acting as a “free lance.” In 1868 he received a knighthood, and in 1880 he was created a baronet. His death occurred at Northenden, Cheshire, on the 13th of April 1901.
WATKINS, a village and the county-seat of Schuyler county, New York, U.S.A., at the head (south end) of Seneca Lake, about 22 m. N.N.W. of Elmira. Pop. (1890) 2604; (1900) 2943; (1905) 2957; (1910) 2817. Watkins is served by the New York Central & Hudson River, the Northern Central (Pennsylvania) and the Lehigh Valley railways, by an electric line to Elmira and by a steamer line on the lake. There are mineral springs, whose waters, notably those of an iodo-bromated brine spring, are used in bath treatment for rheumatism, gout, heart, kidney and liver diseases, &c. Partly within the village limits is Watkins Glen, a narrow winding gorge about 2 m. long, with walls and precipices from 100 to 300 ft. high, through which flows a small stream, forming many falls, cascades and pools. The Glen property, about 103 acres, was opened as an excursion resort in 1863, and in 1906 was made a free state reservation or park and was placed in the custody of the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society. About 3 m. S.E. is Havana Glen, about 1¼ m. long. The first settlement here was made in 1788, and Watkins was incorporated as a village in 1842.
WATLING STREET, the Early English name for the great road made by the Romans from London past St Albans (Roman Verulamium) to Wroxeter (Roman Viroconium) near Shrewsbury and used by the Anglo-Saxons, just as a great part of it is used to-day. According to early documents the name was at first Wæclinga (or Wætlinga) stræt; its derivation is unknown, but an English personal name may lie behind it. After the Conquest the road was included in the list of four Royal Roads which the Norman lawyers recorded or invented (see Ermine Street). Later still, in the Elizabethan period and after it, the name Watling Street seems to have been applied by antiquaries to many Roman or reputed Roman roads in various parts of Britain, and English map-makers and inferior writers on Roman roads still perpetuate the fictions. In particular, the Roman “North Road” which ran from York through Corbridge and over Cheviot to Newstead near Melrose, and thence to the Wall of Pius, and which has largely been in use ever since Roman times, is now not unfrequently called Watling Street, though there is no old authority for it and throughout the middle ages the section of the road between the Tyne and the Forth was called Dere Street. (F. J. H.)
WATSON, RICHARD (1737-1816), English divine, was born in August 1737 at Heversham in Westmorland. His father, a
