William Watson, Baron Thankerton

Who was William Watson, Baron Thankerton?

The Right Honourable William Watson, Baron Thankerton, PC, was a Scottish politician and judge.

Watson was the son of William Watson, Baron Watson, and was educated at Winchester and Jesus College, Cambridge, graduating with a third class degree in law in 1895. He was admitted as an advocate in 1899, taking silk in 1914. He was Procurator to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland from 1918–22, and was an advocate depute in 1919.

Unionist Member of Parliament for Lanark South from 1913 to 1918 and for Carlisle from 1924 to 1929, he held office as Solicitor General for Scotland in 1922 and as Lord Advocate from 1922 to 1924 and from 1924 to 1929. He was appointed a Privy Counsellor in 1922. He was raised to the bench as a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary and created a life peer as Baron Thankerton, of Thankerton in the County of Lanarkshire on 1 May 1929, holding the post until his death at 74 in 1948.