George Watson

Probably the George Watson late of Kingston Jamaica and sometime of Stamford Hill who died April 1835. Partner with Bartholomew Ibbott Williams (q.v.).

1. Baptised in Edinburgh, 08/10/1780, son of James Watson, a painter of Tron Kirk parish, and his wife Janet Dawson. He was the eldest of six children. His sister, Agnes, mentioned in his will, married Thomas Sanders, also a painter, in Edinburgh in 1810. Thomas Sanders died in 1816. In 1836 she married John Sutton Williams, in Inveresk, near Musselburgh. John Sutton Williams, along with his eldest brother Bartholomew Ibbott Williams, was bequeathed £200 by George Watson.

2. Memorial inscription in Kingston Parish Churchyard: . WATSON, ESQ., LATE MERCHT. OF THIS CITY, OB. 3d APRIL, 1835, IN HIS 55th YEAR. TOMB ERECTED BY HIS SISTER AND CO-PARTNER. (Her name is not given but this may be Agnes Williams nee Watson.

3. Will of George Watson [late of Kingston Jamaica but now residing at] Stamford Hill Middlesex proved 01/10/1835. In the will he left £500 to his mother Mrs Janet Watson, and £200 each to his two nephews and niece the children of Rev. John Muir of St Vigeans near Arbroath and Grace his wife. He left monetary legacies of £50 each to Alexander Stewart and Isaac Westmoreland of Winchester House City of London and £200 each to Bartholomew Ibbot Williams and John Sutton Williams. His residuary heirs were his sisters Grace Muir, Agnes Sanders and Eliza Watson of Monkton Hall. Grace Muir's husband Rev. John Muir was responsible for building the chapel at St Vigeans, later Inverbrothock Church, in 1828, and has a monument in St Vigeans Church itself.

MLN Testaments 1830-35.

1. Email from Mary Hewitt, 17/10/2019. Baptism of George Watson, GROS OPR Births 685/1 370 53 Edinburgh and of Agnes, 685/1 370 229 Edinburgh; marriages of Agnes, GROS OPR 685/1 530 344 and 689 190 35.

2. James Henry Lawrence-Archer, Memorial Inscriptions of the British West Indies (1875) p. 138.

3. PROB 11/1853; https://stvigeanschurch.weebly.com/history.html [accessed 06/01/2018]: 'The monument on the east wall of the first north aisle was erected in 1872 to the memory of the Rev John Muir, minister of St Vigeans from 1816 to 1865, and is an interesting piece of Gothic architecture designed by Sir R Rowand Anderson in variegated alabaster and black French marble surrounded by a freestone moulding. A tablet in memory of the Muir family was added beneath it later.'

We are grateful to Mary Hewitt for her assistance with compiling this entry.