| Sir William Watson | |
|---|---|
Photo by Elliott & Fry, Ltd. |
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| Born | 2 August 1858 Burley-in-Wharfedale, Yorkshire |
| Died | 13 August 1935 (aged 77) Rottingdean, Sussex |
Sir William Watson (2 August 1858 – 13 August 1935), was an English poet, popular in his time for the political content of his verse. He was born in Burley, in West Yorkshire.
He was a prolific poet of the 1890s, and a contributor to The Yellow Book, though without 'decadent' associations. Indeed he was very much on the traditionalist wing of English poetry. He had a gift for resonant phrasing and reiterative rhythms which he mistook (and for 20 years many critics mistook) as a gift for poetry. He was, however, well equipped to write suitable effusions on public occasions, indeed better equipped than any of his contemporaries. This made him, on Tennyson's death (1892), a strong candidate for Poet Laureate, but his often extreme views on foreign policy (he was passionately anti-Ottoman) and a breakdown in 1894 led to him being passed over by the then Prime Minister Lord Salisbury in favour of Alfred Austin, who was a poor poet but a loyal conservative. Again after Austin's death in 1913, Asquith seriously considered him for the post, despite the fact that he had written a cruel pasquil against Margot Asquith ('She is not old, she is not young/ The woman with the serpent's tongue'). In exchange for writing a panegyric of Lloyd George (1917) he was awarded a knighthood. After the Great War he was largely forgotten, until a number of literary men in 1935 issued a public appeal for a fund to support him in his old age; but when he died the following year, his widow Lady Watson was obliged to seek employment in domestic service. In all he was a sad example of a writer who was at first overrated and then neglected because of changing tastes, a misfortune all too common in the twentieth century. He deserves, however, to be remembered for a few poems (such as 'Wordsworth's Grave') that say conventional things gracefully and rightly.