Joshua Watson

Joshua Watson (1771–1855) was an English wine merchant, philanthropist, a prominent member of the high church party and of several charitable organisations, who became known as "the best layman in England".

His forefathers were of the hardy and independent race of northern 'statesmen', but his father, John Watson, had come on foot from Cumberland to London in early youth to try his fortunes, and establish himself successfully as a wine merchant on Tower Hill.

Among other friends were Henry Handley Norris, with whom he maintained an unbroken friendship of nearly sixty years, and William Van Mildert, rector of St. Mary-le-Bow in the city (afterwards bishop of Durham).

Though "not slothful in business," Watson always had his heart in church work, and in 1811 he took a house at Clapton, within five minutes' walk of his brother's rectory at Hackney, and also near Henry Handley Norris.

In the same year (1811) Watson and Norris purchased the British Critic to restore it to its original lines as the organ of the high-church party, from which it had somewhat diverged.

In 1814 he was appointed, together with his friend Archdeacon Cambridge, treasurer of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, which during his treasurership increased greatly its work and income.

In 1833, layman though he was, he had the task of revising the Clerical Address to the archbishop of Canterbury, expressing attachment to the church, which was drawn up by William Palmer; the Lay Declaration, which immediately followed, was entirely his composition.

In 1838 his only daughter, Mary Sikes Watson, married Henry Michell Wagner, vicar of Brighton, but she died, to her father's grief, two years later, leaving two sons.

In 1842, owing to the infirmities of age, he resigned the treasurership of the National Society, but he still interested himself in religious and philanthropic work; and when the new missionary college of St. Augustine, Canterbury, was founded in 1845, he was one of the council.

Dr. Pusey, after several interviews with him at Brighton in 1842-3, wrote to him: "One had become so much the object of suspicion, that I cannot say how cheering it was to be recognised by you as carrying on the same torch which we had received from yourself and from those of your generation who had remained faithful to the old teaching."

John Keble's Christian Year was one of his favourite books, and he was an admirer and constant reader of Newman's sermons.