William Stephen Watson
William Stephen Watson (1865-1900)
1901 Obituary [1]
WILLIAM STEPHEN WATSON, second son of the Rev. H. G. Watson, Vicar of Great Staughton, St. Neots, was born on the 26th December, 1865.
He was educated at St. Marks, Windsor, and at Merchant Taylors School, London, and in 1883 became a student of the Royal College of Science. In the following year he was elected by open competition to a free studentship in the College, and in 1886 he obtained the Associateship.
From July, 1886, to December, 1887, he was employed by Messrs. Gillman and Spencer on the erection of machinery at Gordon Wharf, Rotherhithe.
He then served articles to Mr. Jabez Church, on the completion of which in 1890 he was employed by Mr. Church as Resident Engineer on the construction of the Mid-Sussex Waterworks.
In 1892, Mr. Watson went to Cape Town, where he was engaged for over five years under Mr. Thomas Stewart on various works, among which may be mentioned a dam across the Van Staaden River, surveys for Uitenhage and Bloemfontein Waterworks, the Table Mountain storage-reservoir and the wire ropeway erected for the purpose of carrying materials for that work, the reservoir at Kloof Nek, near Sea Point, and a pier near Cape Town for landing fish.
In August, 1897, he was employed by the Government to survey for a railway to connect Cape Town with Port Elizabeth, and in the following year he was appointed an Assistant-Engineer in the service of the Cape Government, and was engaged on the construction of the Oudtshoorn-Klippart Railway.
In July, 1900, he was transferred to the Mossel Bay end of the line, where a few months later he fell a victim to enteric fever, his death taking place on the 23rd December, 1900.
Mr. Watson was elected an Associate Member of the Institution on the 1st of December, 1891.