William J. Watson

Who was William J. Watson?

Professor William J. Watson was a toponymist, one of the greatest Scottish scholars of the 20th century, and was the first scholar to place the study of Scottish place names on a firm linguistic basis.

Watson was a native Gaelic-speaker, born in Milntown of New Tarbat, Easter Ross. He was the son of Hugh Watson, a blacksmith. He received his initial education from his uncle, James Watson. William became well grounded in Gaelic studies and in the Classics. William went to the University of Aberdeen and the University of Oxford.

First a school teacher in Glasgow, Inverness and then Edinburgh, it was while teaching in Inverness that be began to contribute to the Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness and the Celtic Review. He married Ella Carmichael daughter of Alexander Carmichael. He took the chair of Celtic at the University of Edinburgh in 1914, despite holding no prior university position. He remained in this prestigious position until making way for his son James Carmichael Watson in 1938. William died aged 83 on 9 March 1948

He is best known for his The Celtic Place-names of Scotland, based on 30 years of work. Watson's work, eight decades later, is still the primary scholarly reference guide on the subject. The book is based on extensive notes taken by Watson, which are unpublished and held by Edinburgh University. Watson's great work was recently republished by Birlinn .