Joseph Watson, 1st Baron Manton (10 February 1873–13 March 1922) was a prominent English industrialist and philanthropist.
Watson was the only son of George Watson, soap manufacturer, of Donisthorpe House near Moor Allerton, Leeds, Yorkshire. He was chairman of Joseph Watson & Sons Ltd, soap manufacturers, of Leeds, a director of the London and North-Western Railway, a pioneer of industrialised agriculture in England and successful racehorse owner. Educated at Repton School and Clare College, Cambridge,[1] he was recalled to the family firm before completing his degree, becoming chairman at a young age.
The limited company Joseph Watson & Sons had been founded by Joseph his grandfather and had grown out of a hide tanning business established in about 1820 at Woodside, Horsforth, 5 miles (8.0 km) NW of central Leeds. The business was an adjacent diversification [2] from the small family farm, which covered the area between today's Outwood Lane and Broadway, with further rented ground to the SE.[3] The former existence of the original business is today memorialized by the name of Tanhouse Hill Lane, to the east of which it stood, within a triangular site.
It was however Joseph the grandson who turned the company from the medium sized concern built up by his father and uncle Charles into one which ruled the soap market of North-East England, with national and international markets, becoming William Lever's biggest rival[4] Lever started as a grocer who bought in soap from several suppliers, including Watson's, and branded them "Sunlight". Lever soon set up his own manufacturing plants, but by then Watson's had founded its own brands and independent marketing abilities. Watson was amongst the first of the established manufacturers to follow Lever's heavy advertising and revolutionary marketing techniques, offering prizes such as day trips to Brighton and visits to Paris to view the Grecian sculpture Venus de Milo, in exchange for soap wrapper returns. In 1885 production had been 100 tons per week, which rose fivefold by 1906. One of the by-products was glycerine, sold for the manufacture of explosives. The company, known locally as "Soapy Joe's" was based after 1861 at the Whitehall Road Soapworks, Leeds, strategically placed between the River Aire, from which palm oil shipped in from around the world was unloaded, and the former railway terminal, from which the finished product was dispatched. It became one of the largest employers in the city, producing brands such as "Matchless Cleanser", "Venus" and "Nubolic".
On 4th. August 1906 Watson and William Lever, by then the largest manufacturer, met in the Grand Hotel in London to finalise a plan to set up a "Soap Trust" which would merge the major soap manufacturers into a monopoly, thereby gaining economies of scale in advertising and production costs. Watson favoured the use of a parent company whilst Lever preferred a scheme of exchange of shares between participating companies to bind them together. The timing however was poor. The scheme was in imitation of hundreds of similar trusts which had been established in the USA following John D. Rockefeller's pioneering organisation of the Standard Oil Co. in 1882 as a virtual monopoly combination of many small independent oil companies. The manufacturers in their idealism foresaw benefits from trusts to both consumer and producer from economies of scale, yet abuses occurred. A sugar trust evaded $4M of customs duty, and the creation of a beef trust seemed a threat to cheap food supplies. The dangers to the consumer were soon understood by the politicians and the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 was the response. The Act was not totally successful and Theodore Roosevelt in his 2nd. Presidency launched a new ""trust-busting" policy at about the same time the British soap trust was being established. Trusts and their activities made good copy in 1906, and the scheme was strongly opposed by the Daily Mail newspaper which campaigned for a boycott by its readers of the trust brands. Profits at participating firms were thereby severely reduced. The Northcliffe Press in its expanding and highly popular campaign over-stepped the mark by falsely asserting trust soaps to be made from scented fish oil. Although Watson and Lever won substantial libel damages from the press, losses in reputation and profits had been suffered all round. On the proposal of Watson and Crosfield, another large manufacturer, the scheme was abandoned in November 1906. By then Watson had already disposed of much of his shareholding, previously all held by himself and his uncle Charles, to William Lever, in exchange for Lever Brothers shares in order to set up the trust.[5]
In 1912/13 Watson sold much of his remaining shareholding to Lever (Lever Brothers Ltd.), selling him the remainder in July 1917, but remaining as Chairman. He had sold his half share in the Planter's Margarine Co Ltd. to Lever in July 1915, a joint venture established in November 1914 at Godley in Cheshire with Levers, in response to Government anxiety at the wartime loss of Dutch supplies. He had supplied it from his Olympia Oil & Cake Co. Ltd. at Selby, Yorks which operated the largest linseed oil crushing and refining plant in Europe also hardening whale oil, which he later sold to the Dutch firm Jurgens, which had outbid Levers. Watson had recently suffered substantial losses in an unsuccessful speculation in linseed oil, for use in his crushing plant, and it seemed to him the time to leave the industry and seek new projects.
On retirement from the soap industry, Watson turned his focus to the pioneering of industrialised agriculture, spurred on by wartime food shortages, and funded the Agricultural Research Department at Leamington Spa. He founded the Olympia Agricultural Co Ltd., through which he invested much of his proceeds into agricultural estates totalling some 20,000 acres (81 km2) at Selby (Yorks), Kennett (Wilts), Sudbourne(Suffolk) and at Offchurch (Warks.).[6] His Olympia Oil & Cake Co. had produced a cake by-product used to fatten livestock.
At the start of the First World War Watson's industrial and organisational expertise was called on by the government, and he assisted in the establishment and operation of national munitions factories, most notably at the First National Shell Filling Factory at Barnbow, Leeds. [1] [2] Following the heavy consumption of munitions in the opening battles of WWI at the Somme, the Northcliffe Press (Daily Mail) brought to the public's attention what became known as "The Shell Crisis", signifying that the nation had given little thought to securing long-term munitions supplies needed to successfully wage an unprecedented protracted war. The Asquith government fell, to be replaced by that of Lloyd George, recently appointed Minister of Munitions to resolve the crisis. Watson as chairman of a six-man "Leeds Munitions Committee" made up from local industrialists, formed in August 1915, was charged by the government to establish immediately the first of 12 National Shell Filling Factories. A factory was promptly established on a 400-acre (1.6 km2) greenfield site at Barnbow, close to Leeds, resembling more a small town of detached houses and huts than a traditional factory, in order to contain and localise any accidental explosions. It remained the largest such operation in the country, having despatched overseas by the Armistice 566,000 tons of finished ammunition. At its height it employed 16,000 workers, 93% of whom were women and girls. Two members of the directing board were on duty at Barnbow every day, and the board met at least once a month to receive reports. The factory was largely self-contained for reasons of national security, operating under great secrecy. It operated its own farm including dairy and slaughterhouse. Kitchens and accounting department were equipped with the latest electric macinery. Nursing facilities and dentists were provided. Naturally it established its own fire brigade, which tragically had to deal with three accidental explosions, the most serious of which occurred in 1916, killing 35 women and injuring many more. Due to wartime censorship, no public account of the accidents was made. The memorials to these unfortunate victims are almost the only trace which remains of the operation on the site today.[7]
Apart from his business career, Watson was a keen rider to hounds, hunting with the Bramham Moor Foxhounds in Yorkshire, near his home at Linton Spring, Wetherby. He was a prominent racehorse owner and in 1918 acquired the Manton training establishment [3] near Marlborough, Wilts. from Alec Taylor, Jr.. In 1921 he won the Epsom Oaks with Love-in-Idleness, the Grand Prix de Paris with Lemonora which also had gained third place in the Derby that year. Lemonora - somewhat incongruously for a stallion - named after an apricot coloured azalea, was immortalised for the latter placement in the 1935 film The 39 Steps in which "Mr Memory" was challenged to recite the names of the first 3 horses in the 1921 Derby.
In 1921 Watson donated £50,000 to the Leeds General Infirmary, of which he was a board member from 1906 to his death, to replace some of its investments which had to be sold during WWI, presumably to meet running costs.[8] A half-length bronze bas-relief portrait of Watson in his baronial robes is displayed there in the George Street entrance hall, under which is inscribed A Wise Counsellor and Generous Benefactor. The bronze is in imitation of a Roman stela or tombstone, and depicts him with the hand gesture characteristic of a Roman orator or senator grabbing his toga at the chest.
In January 1922 he was raised to the peerage for his war services [9] as Baron Manton of Compton Verney in the County of Warwick. He had purchased the Robert Adam neo-classical mansion Compton Verney and its 5,079-acre (20.55 km2) estate in 1921 from Lord Willoughby de Broke, intending to make his seat there, which intention was not realised due to his sudden death in March 1922, before having taken up residence.[10] Whether his elevation, at the behest of Lloyd-George, was the result of a political donation, has not been proved but the title is not amongst those generally quoted by commentators as falling into this category.[11] Certainly family papers in existence do evidence the Prime Minister's gratitude to Watson for his work in munitions supply.
Joseph Watson adopted a variation of the armorials of the Watson Earls of Rockingham, which earldom had become extinct in 1746 on the death of Thomas Watson, 3rd Earl of Rockingham. The arms of Baron Manton became :"Argent, on a chevron azure between 4 martlets 3 in-chief and 1 in-base sable a crescent between 2 roses of the field". For supporters he also adopted a variant of Rockingham: "On either side a gryphon per fesse azure and argent, charged on the shoulder with a rose also argent".[12] The arms of the Earls of Rockingham were: "Argent, on a chevron azure between 3 martlets sable as many crescents or". The Rockingham supporters were: "2 griffins argent ducally gorged or".[13] Manton adopted the Rockingham motto without alteration: "Mea Gloria Fides" (Trust is my Renown). For his crest, Manton adopted a variant of the oak tree arms of the 17th c. Watson family of Saughton, Edinburgh: crest of Baron Manton: "a gryphon passant sable in front of an oak tree proper".[14] The armourials of Watson of Saughton were: "Argent, an oak tree growing out of a mount in base proper surmounted of a fess azure". The latter family was granted in 1818 the griffin supporters of the Earls of Rockingham, noted above.[15] There is no evidence of any genealogical link between the family of Joseph Watson and either of the two families from which he adopted his armourials. Burke' Armorials, 1884 does however list 4 Watson families in Yorkshire all bearing variants of the Rockingham arms, therefore possibly lineal descendants. The heir of the 3rd & last Earl of Rockingham in the more ancient title of Baron Rockingham was Thomas Watson-Wentworth, 1st Marquess of Rockingham, who built the palatial mansion Wentworth Woodhouse near Rotherham, Yorkshire. This house would come to have a connection with the 3rd Baron Manton, whose maternal aunt Joyce Langdale of Houghton Hall, Sancton York, resided there following her 1956 marriage to the 10th Earl FitzWilliam, which family was heir to the Rockinghams.
Lord Manton married (Frances) Claire, daughter of Harold Nickols, of Leeds, in 1898. He died in March 1922, aged only 49, from a heart-attack, whilst out hunting beside two of his sons with the Warwickshire Foxhounds, at Upper Quinton, close to his new mansion, having held his title for less than two months. He was buried at nearby Offchurch, in his hunting apparel. His estate was sworn for probate at exactly one million pounds. He left four sons, being succeeded in the barony by the eldest, (George) Miles Watson, 2nd Baron Manton. His widow continued to reside until her death in 1936 in the mansion house of Offchurch Bury. A portrait of Joseph Watson mounted on a hunter was painted by Lynwood Palmer.
| Peerage of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| New creation | Baron Manton 1922 |
Succeeded by George Miles Watson |