Researching David Watson

Born in Quebec City, Quebec, the son of William Watson and Jane Grant, Watson was a journalist with the Quebec Morning Chronicle (later called just Quebec Chronicle). He later became general manager of the paper and general manager of its publisher.

He started his military career as a private in the 8th Regiment, Royal Rifles. He was promoted to lieutenant and then to captain in 1903, major in 1910, and lieutenant-colonel in 1912. In 1914, he enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force and was soon given command of the 2nd Battalion, CEF. He was promoted to Brigadier-General in 1915 and took command of the 5th Brigade, 2nd Canadian Division. He was promoted to Major-General and took command of the 4th Canadian Division upon its creation in 1916. He led his various commands in most of the major Canadian battles of World War I including Second Ypres, the Somme, Vimy Ridge, Passchendaele, Amiens, Second Arras, and Cambrai.

In late 1917, he and Victor Odlum saved their commanding officer, Arthur Currie, from a career-ending charge of embezzlement by lending Currie enough money so that he could repay a large sum he had borrowed from regimental funds before the war.

After the war, he resumed his job at the Quebec Chronicle and became the majority owner. He was also chairman of the Quebec Harbour Commission. He died in 1922.

Watson was born in Rutherglen in Scotland, and migrated to Australia at 15, settling in the Newcastle suburb of Lambton. He was a miner there for sixteen years, spent some years with the Australian Baptist Home Mission in the Dungog area, then returned to mining at Newcastle. Watson was working in the Pelaw-Main Colliery when he became president of the Northern District Miners' Union during the 1909 miners' strike, succeeding Peter Bowling. He remained in the role until his election to the Senate, with the abolition of the afternoon shift in the mines being a major achievement during this time. Watson was also a long-term temperance advocate and Baptist lay preacher. He was an unsuccessful candidate for the Senate at the 1913 federal election.

In 1914, Watson was elected to the Australian Senate as a Labor Senator from New South Wales. He campaigned against conscription during the 1916 and 1917 referendums. In March 1917, amidst the fallout of the 1916 Labor split, he alleged on the floor of the Senate that Prime Minister Billy Hughes and Senators George Pearce and Thomas Givens had attempted to bribe him to join their new National Labor Party, which was furiously denied. Hughes subsequently sued him for slander, which after a high-profile months-long legal battle in the Supreme Court of Victoria was settled in October 1917. Watson lost his seat in the double-dissolution election of 1917.

Following his Senate defeat, he turned to full-time temperance organising, initially in Victoria and Queensland before moving to Sydney 1921 to head up the field staff for temperance organisation the New South Wales Alliance. He frequently toured the country speaking in support of prohibition of alcohol in these roles until his death. He attempted to make a political comeback at the 1922 state election, but was defeated.

He died at Lewisham Hospital in December 1924 after experiencing complications from a surgical procedure. He was buried in the Baptist section of Sandgate Cemetery.

Before moving to New York, while in New Zealand in the 1980s, Watson co-founded Braille Records to document the local experimental music scene. He organized national improvisation festivals (Off the Deep End, in 1984 and 1985) and in 2001 started the Artspace/alt.music festival to present new experimental music in Auckland.

Watson's work includes regular performances with MacArthur Award winner John Zorn; ongoing recording projects with Lee Ranaldo and Christian Marclay; a premier performance of a Robert Ashley work in New York; performances in Europe with rock-minimalism pioneer Rhys Chatham; a recording project with Jonathan Kane; performances with Zeena Parkins at Brooklyn Academy of Music and a score for Jeremy Nelson Dance.

Watson released his disc Throats - with vocalists Makigami Koichi and Shelley Hirsch - on Ecstatic Peace; and a double CD Fingering an Idea, on Phill Niblock's XI Records to critical acclaim. Together with Tony Buck and Ranaldo he formed the band Glacial. In 2010, Ranaldo released the solo album Maelstrom From Drift on Three Lobed Recordings with guest appearances of Tony Buck and David Watson. Glacial released On Jones Beach In 2012.

David was born in Aberdeen in 1891. His father was John Duncan Watson, a civil engineer regarded as a pioneer in the development of sewage treatment. David was the holder of a Bachelor of Science degree.

David Watson served as a temporary officer in the Yeomanry of the Territorial Force of the British Army during the First World War. He was promoted to lieutenant on 1 August 1917 with precedence of 1 June 1916. He retired from the army as a lieutenant on 2 March 1919, having transferred to the Royal Army Service Corps, being allowed to retain his rank.

After the war Watson became a civil engineer, going into professional practice with his retired father by 1940. During the Second World War Watson served in the army once more, this time as an officer of the Engineer and Railway Staff Corps, an unpaid Territorial Army unit which provides technical expertise to the British Army. He became a Lieutenant-Colonel in the corps on 29 October 1943 and was promoted to colonel on 26 February 1949. Watson's father died in 1946 and Watson retired from practice on 1 April 1951. He served as president of the Institution of Civil Engineers from November 1954 to November 1955, following in the footsteps of his father who had been president from November 1935 to November 1936.

Watson was born in Austin, Texas. Subsequently, Watson's parents moved to London, where they had been brought up, and where Watson was then brought up.

On stage, Watson played many Shakespearean characters including that of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark in Hamlet, Romeo in Romeo and Juliet, Prospero in The Tempest and Macbeth in Macbeth.

After appearing on stage, Watson first moved onto television, appearing in episodes of TV shows such as Rawhide, Never Too Young, The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., The Time Tunnel, Petticoat Junction, Rowan & Martin's Laugh In, The Legend of Robin Hood, Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color, Daniel Boone, Charlie's Angels, The Bionic Woman, Project U.F.O. and Good Guys Bad Guys.

He also appeared in the films Beneath the Planet of the Apes, Beyond the Next Mountain, Lucky Break (AKA Paperback Romance) and The Wannabes. He retired in 2003. He died of a heart attack in 2014.

Educated at Sedbergh School, Watson later studied at the University of Oxford. Watson made his first-class debut in unusual circumstances during a match between Oxford University and a combined Minor counties team in 1939. Having bowled nine overs in Oxford University's first-innings, the Minor Counties Francis Wilkinson was injured and took no further part in the match. The spectating Watson was allowed by the agreement of Oxford University to take to the field for the Minor Counties as a substitute player. Batting in the Minor Counties first-innings, Watson scored 33 runs before he was dismissed by Michael Farebrother, while in their second-innings he was dismissed by the same bowler for 35 runs.

Following this match he made a second first-class appearance, this time for Oxford University against Leicestershire. In a match which ended as a draw he was dismissed for 7 runs in the university's first-innings by Vic Jackson, while in their second-innings he remained unbeaten with 8 runs.

Watson's work depicts industrial scenes of his native Teesside inspired by his recollections, some of the work is literal while others contain figures Watson describes as ghosts and relics of a time long since gone.