Richard Watson (bishop)

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Rt Rev Richard Watson (1737-1816) was an Anglican clergyman and academic, who served as the Bishop of Llandaff from 1782 to 1816.

He was born in Heversham, Westmorland (now Cumbria), and educated at Heversham Grammar School and Trinity College, Cambridge, on a scholarship endowed by Edward Wilson. In 1773, he married Dorothy Wilson, daughter of Edward Wilson of Dallam Tower and a descendant of Edward Wilson who had endowed Watson's scholarship.

In 1759, he graduated as Second Wrangler and became a fellow of Trinity in 1760. He received his MA in 1762. He would go on to become a professor of chemistry in 1764, and Regius professor of divinity in 1771. he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1769 after publishing a paper on the solution of salts in Philosophical Transactions.

Watson's religious career began when he took up the position of prebendary of Trinity College in 1774. He became archdeacon of Ely and rector of Northwold in 1779, leaving the Northwold post in 1781 to become rector of Knattoft. In 1782, he left all his previous appointments to take up the post of Bishop of Llandaff, which he held till his death in 1816.

In 1788, he purchased the Calgarth estate in Troutbeck Bridge, Windermere, Westmoreland. After his death in 1816, he was buried at St. Martin's church in Windermere. One of his great, great, great grandons, Reverend David Watson (1933-84) of St. Michael le Belfrey, would himself become a renowned evangelical clergyman over a century after Bishop Watson's death.

[edit] References

• Palmer, Bill (2007). "Richard Watson, Bishop of Llandaff (1737-1816): A chemist of the chemical revolution". Australian Journal of Education in Chemistry (68): 33–38. Perth, Australia: Royal Australian Chemical Institute.