Researching Thomas Watson

Watson began life as a silk spinner. In 1846 with two fellow workers, he started a silk-spinning and hatter business in Rochdale. He was responsible for the invention of silk-plush for hat-making and became sole partner in the firm of Thomas Watson & Sons, silk-plush manufacturers of Rochdale. He funded a new infirmary for the town of Rochdale, became chairman of Rochdale School Board, and treasurer of the Free Church Denomination. He was also J.P. for Rochdale.

In the 1885 general election, Watson was elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Ilkeston. He retained the seat in the 1886 general election, but died in 1887 at the age of 66.

He was born in 1792, the son of Joseph Watson, in Kentisbeare, near Honiton, East Devon, and educated at Bury St Edmunds Grammar School. He entered St John's College, Cambridge, graduating in 1815. He was elected a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1826 and delivered the Gulstonian Lecture in 1827 and the Lumleian lecture in 1831.

He studied medicine at St Bartholomew's Hospital and Edinburgh and graduated M.D. from Cambridge University in 1825. He was appointed physician to the Middlesex hospital in 1827 and was professor of clinical medicine at the University of London for a year before transferring to King's College as professor of Forensic Medicine and later professor of Principles and Practice of Medicine.

In 1833, Dominic Corrigan, a British physician, first described the visible abrupt distention and collapse of carotid arteries in patients with aortic insufficiency. Watson went on to investigate the palpable pulse in these patients and, following his elaboration, the clinical sign is also referred to as Watson's pulse.

He resigned his chair at King’s College in 1840 and his post in the Middlesex hospital in 1843 and in 1859 was appointed physician extraordinary to the queen. He was created a baronet in 1866 and in 1870 was appointed physician in ordinary to the queen.

In 1857 he was elected to serve for two years as President of the Pathological Society and in 1859 was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, In 1868 he was elected President of the Clinical Society of London.

Born in Nashville, Arkansas, Watson served in the United States Air Force during the Korean War. He also went to Harding University. Watson and his family moved to Edmond, Oklahoma where he worked for Oklahoma Christian University. He was the minister of Edmond Church of Christ. From 1972 to 1987, Watson served in the Oklahoma State Senate and was a Republican. Then from 1987 to 1990, Watson was the head of the Oklahoma Department of Human Services. He was also involved with missionary work in Zambia.