Thomas Augustus Watson (January 18, 1854 – December 13, 1934) was an assistant to Alexander Graham Bell, notably in the invention of the telephone in 1876.

Born in Salem, Massachusetts,[1] United States, Watson was a bookkeeper and a carpenter before he found a job more to his liking in the Charles Williams machine shop in Boston in 1872.

Watson had the distinction of receiving the first ever telephone call (from Bell in the next room) and hearing his name as the first words ever spoken over the phone.

[6] After more experimentation, he invented the polarized ringer, in which a small hammer positioned between two bells is electromagnetically drawn back and forth to strike them in rapid alternation;[7][8] this device was manufactured for 60 years.

He soon began taking bids for building naval destroyers and by 1901 the Fore River Ship and Engine Company was one of the largest shipyards in America.

[16] Upon meeting Baba, Watson is reported to have said, "In my seventy-eight years of life, today is the first time I have experienced what divine love is.