▶Date of birth:  15 February 1819        Place of birth: Foston-on-the-Wolds, Yorkshire

▶Father: Benjamin Watson      Mother:  Mary Batty

▶Spouse(s):  (1) Eliza Keen; (2) Louisa Stephens    Date(s) of marriage:  (1) 3 October 1848; (2) 14 June 1864     Place(s) of marriage: (1) Baptist Chapel, Oakham, Rutland; (2) Camelford, Cornwall

▶Occupation: Clergyman (Wesleyan Methodist minister)

▶Lifestory: Edward Watson spent his life as a Wesleyan minister. He was born in Foston-on-the-Wolds in Yorkshire, in 1819, the fifth son of draper Benjamin Watson, of Foston-on-the-Wolds, and his wife Mary (née Batty). He was in his early twenties at the time of the 1841 census, when he lived with his parents and family at Foston. In 1848 he married Eliza, daughter of Mr Charles Keen, farmer, of Empingham, Rutland; they had three sons and one daughter.

By this time Watson had launched his career as a Wesleyan minister, working wherever he was sent throughout England. In 1845-7 he was an Assistant Minister on the Stamford circuit in Lincolnshire, and in 1848 served at Yoxford in east Suffolk. He was stationed, again as an Assistant Minister, to  Newton, Monmouthshire 1849-50, Loughborough in 1851, Matlock i1852-3, and Helston in Cornwall 1854-6, moving to Hayle in Cornwall 1857-9. In 1861 was at Northwich in Cheshire.

He was promoted within the Church hierarchy in 1862 to Superintendent Minister, a position he retained for the rest of his working life in various towns. He first appointed was at Camelford in Cornwall, where he stayed until 1863. After the death of his wife in 1862 he married again, in 1864, to Louisa Stephens, with whom he had a further two sons and a daughter. In that year he was appointed Superintendent of the Newport circuit in Monmouthshire, until 1866, and from 1867 until 1868 was working on one of the London circuits, in the Kentish Town.

Watson was known as an excellent preacher, and in London his “sermons were marked by the careful preparation, earnestness, and eloquence which usually characterize Mr. Watson’s discourses”. In 1870 he returned to Newport to preach at the opening of the new Wesleyan Chapel; by now he had moved to Chapel Lane, Keighley and worked in the northern districts.

He was stationed as Superintendent of the Cheltenham district 1873-4; between 1874 and 1877 Edward Watson and his family lived at 27 Clarence Square in Pittville; his son Charles died there, aged twenty-three, in 1873. In 1878 he was the Minister at the Brunswick Chapel in Whitby, and served as Chairman of the Wesleyan Methodist Society of Whitby and Darlington in 1880 before becoming Chairman of the Swansea district in 1881, until 1883. Moving further south, he was appointed Chairman of the Cornwall district, stationed at Redruth 1884-5, and served at Luton (Waller Street) in 1887.

He edged into retirement, but in 1891 surprised his colleagues by volunteering for further work with the ministry in Cornwall. He died at St Columb, Cornwall, in 1894, at the age of seventy-five, having enjoyed over fifty years as a Wesleyan minister.

▶Moved to Pittville from:  Keighley, Yorkshire      Moved from Pittville to: Whitby, Yorkshire

▶Date of death: 23 April 1894       Place of death: St Columb, Cornwall

▶Date of burial:         Place of burial:

▶Notes: Joseph Hall, Hall's circuits and ministers; an alphabetical list of the circuits in Great Britain, with the names of the ministers stationed in each circuit; together with the appointments to departments and other offices from 1765 to 1912 (1914)       ID: 5628

Contributor(s):  John Simpson/Alan Munden