[1] He spent two years at Chatham Dockyard, and then was moved to Cork Harbour and work in charge of the defences of Fort Carlisle there.

[3] Tethered balloons were in military use in the American Civil War, and attracted attention from the Royal Engineers, with Frederick Beaumont and Sapper George Grover making trial ascents in 1863 with Henry Tracey Coxwell.

Shortly after the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, a committee of the Royal Engineers was set up to look into innovations, and a Balloon Sub-Committee was formed of Beaumont, Grover and Frederick Abel.

[5] In 1874–1875 Watson served in Sudan under General Charles George Gordon, and was engaged in the survey of the White Nile.

With William Harold Chippendall (1850–1942), also of the Royal Engineers, he mapped the part of the Nile between Fashoda (now Kodok) and Gondokoro, now lying in South Sudan, in October and November 1874.

[10] In 1882 the Store was moved to Chatham, and the development work on balloons by James Templer and Henry Elsdale came much closer to realisation in the form of a field unit.

In the aftermath Drury Drury-Lowe, commanding the Cavalry Division, received orders to seize Cairo from the supporters of Ahmed Urabi.

Watson, at the head of a small force—a column of Indian cavalry and mounted infantry, joined by the 4th Dragoon Guards—led the advance from Bilbeis on Cairo.

[1] In 1902 Watson was chosen to be the British delegate to the International Navigation Congress at Düsseldorf, and in the same capacity visited Milan in 1905 and St. Petersburg in 1908.