Details of Sculptor

Surname

Watson

Alternative Surname

First Name

James, of Norwich

Initial of Surname

W

Year of Birth/Baptism

1800

Flourished

Year of Death

1849

Biographical Details

Gunnis believed there were two James Watsons, father and son, perhaps because the monument to Elizabeth Clarke, † 1793 (1) is in the mid-18th century style. It was however clearly made to match the tablet to her husband, Samuel, †1761, also in the north transept at East Dereham. The second Watson monument at East Dereham, to the Clarkes’ daughter and her husband, Peter Stoughton, is little more than an inscription (2). The signature on both is ‘J WATSON. NORWICH’.
There appears to be no mention of a James Watson in Norwich newspapers or other documents before 1825. Inscriptions recorded in the church of St Peter Parmentergate, Norwich, give dates for the death of Susanna, wife of James Watson, statuary and mason, late of Thorner in the county of York, in 1838 aged 41; James Watson himself in 1849, aged 49; and James Clemshaw Watson, their only surviving son, in 1851, aged 22. The IGI confirms that Watson was baptised in Thorner on 3 May 1801, less than a year after his parents married there, his father being named Robert.
Gunnis described tablets which he took to be by the elder Watson as quite well carved, but in no way outstanding and considered the best to be the pair in East Dereham (1, 2). In 1825 Watson formed a partnership with another stone and marble mason, Samuel Blythe of 89 Pottergate Street, Norwich (Norwich Mercury, 18 June). This may have been short-lived for it is Watson’s signature that appears on the ‘competent’ wall-tablets listed below. These include the ‘very chaste monument of white marble’ put up by James Watson of Castle Meadow to commemorate his kinsman William Moore (8) (Norwich Mercury, 30 Oct 1841).
On 1 June 1844 the Norwich Mercury, reported that James Watson had contracted with Mr Donthorn, the successful entrant in the competition for the Leicester monument (13), ‘to erect that column and all its ornament’, except for the bronze bas reliefs, which are by John Henning II.
The business was continued to 1857 or later by Watson’s second wife, Ann and her son by a previous marriage.
Jon Bayliss
Literary References: Gunnis 1968, 414