Theodore Watts-Dunton

Theodore Watts-Dunton (12 October 1832 – 6 June 1914), from St Ives, Huntingdonshire, was an English poetry critic with major periodicals, and himself a poet.

Abandoning natural history for the law, he qualified as a solicitor and went to London, where he practised for some years, giving his spare time to his chosen pursuit of literature.

[1] Watts-Dunton had considerable influence as the friend of many of the leading men of letters of his time; he enjoyed the confidence of Tennyson and contributed an appreciation of him to the authorised biography.

[8] Both The Coming of Love and Aylwin set forth – the one in poetry, the other in prose – the romantic and passionate associations of Romany life, and maintain the traditions of George Borrow, whom Watts-Dunton had known well in his own youth.

Imaginative glamour and mysticism are their prominent characteristics, and the novel in particular was credited with bringing pure romance back into public favour.

Watts-Dunton's elongated name was celebrated by Stephen Potter's book on Gamesmanship, in which the Dunton-Watts supercharger was merely a thrust in the motoring gamesman's ploy to get one up on the opponent.

When faced with an equally adept car man, the gamesman could expect a riposte involving the inevitably superior Watson-Dunn supercharger.