Details of Sculptor

Surname

Watson

Alternative Surname

First Name

Samuel I

Initial of Surname

W

Year of Birth/Baptism

1662

Flourished

Year of Death

1715

Biographical Details

A talented carver whose work was similar in style to Grinling Gibbons, he is chiefly remembered for his immense amount of carving of a very high standard at Chatsworth, Derbys, which was for many years mis-attributed to Gibbons (2-20, 22-27).
Watson was born at Heanor, Derbys, the son of Ralph Watson, a husbandman of Heanor, and his wife, Bridget, née Townsend, and was baptised there on 2 December 1662. Little is known of his early life but his grandson, White Watson, stated that he was ‘a pupil of Mr. Charles Oakey, carver, in the parish of St Martin’s in the fields’ (Lysons 1806-22, V, 153). Oakey or Okey was employed by the 1st Duke of Beaufort on the remodelling of Badminton House in 1683 and it is possible that Watson worked there too. He is known to have worked under the London carver Thomas Young for the Earl of Exeter at Burghley House and for George Vernon at Sudbury Hall. Since Gibbons was also employed at Badminton, Burghley and Sudbury, Watson must have had many opportunities to study his work.
By 1690-91 Young and Watson were employed by the Earl of Exeter’s brother-in-law, the 4th Earl (and later 1st Duke) of Devonshire at Chatsworth. There they were joined by Joel Lobb and his assistant William Davis. By 1692 Young had left and Watson and Davis were both working as Lobb’s assistants, while other carvers including Nadauld and C G Cibber, came and went. In that year, following a dispute over pay, the Earl dismissed his architect, John Talman, and most of his London and foreign craftsmen, but Watson was kept on and he rose to become principal carver. He worked at Chatsworth until 1711 and as well as carving, he assisted Sir Christopher Wren in his independent valuation of the work done by Talman’s team.
Much of Watson’s work at Chatsworth is well-documented: numerous payments to him for carving in limewood, stone, alabaster and marble are recorded in the accounts and many drawings relating to his work have survived. George Vertue, his contemporary, commented on ‘The Ornaments Carvd in wood & foliages by Watson sculptor in wood & stone. The boys in the Chapel and other parts of his works. very fine … a most ingenious artist’ (Vertue II, 37). It is certain that Gibbons never worked at Chatsworth but by the mid-18th century his name had become associated with carving there. In 1744 the Earl of Egmont noted that there was ‘a good deal of fine carving in wood by the late Grinlin Gibbons’ in the chapel (HMC Egmont MSS, in Green 1964, 118) and in 1760 Horace Walpole mentioned ‘Much carving here [in the Chapel] & about the house by Gibbins & Watson his scholar’ (Walpole, Country Seats, 28). With Walpole’s authority behind it, this myth has persisted until the present day, though documents proving Watson’s contribution were revealed by his descendants in the early 19th century and several historians have pointed to the lack of evidence linking Gibbons to the house.
In addition to his work at Chatsworth Watson may have provided stone carving in the painted hall and grotto, and the ornamental parts of the alabaster reredos in the chapel, thought to have been designed by Cibber. Brighton also attributes to Watson a famous assemblage of limewood carving, featuring a portrait medallion, a point-lace cravat and a dead woodcock, long thought to be the work of Grinling Gibbons. The medallion is of particular interest since it may be the only surviving likeness of Watson.
Elsewhere, Watson carved ornamental vases for Thomas Coke of Melbourne Hall (21). In 1806 he wrote to Coke: ‘I have according to your order sent you two designs of vases, which I take to bee something after ye manner your worship spoke of att Melborn; but if you would have any alteration in either of them as to cartouches instead of festoons or in any other part, be pleased to give me your directions which shall bee observed to my uttermost power’ (Archives, Marquess of Lothian, in Gunnis 1968, 416). Gunnis notes that a number of stone vases which are perhaps Watson’s work survive in the gardens at Melbourne.
Collections of Watson’s drawings are kept at Chatsworth, the Derbyshire record office at Matlock, the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and Alnwick Castle, Northumberland. These volumes include Watson’s own designs, sketches by other artists and drawings by Watson of the work of his contemporaries at Chatsworth and elsewhere. A drawing of the Ferrers monument at Tamworth, Staffs, falls into the last category. Gunnis cited this drawing as proof that the monument was by Watson but it was subsequently shown to be the work of Gibbons and Arnold Quellin. Watson does appear to have undertaken some monumental work for a payment of £17 was made to him in 1698 for ‘cutting a monument in alabaster for His Grace the Duke of Newcastle’(1).
Towards the end of his life Watson married Katherine Greensmith, a woman 17 years his junior, from Pilsey, a Chatsworth estate village, and they settled at Heanor. Their first son died in infancy in 1711, but a second son was born in 1714 and Katharine was pregnant with another when her husband died of a stroke in 1715. Samuel was buried at Heanor on 31 March 1715. His sons Henry Watson and Samuel Watson II both trained as carvers, as did his grandson, White Watson. As part of the rehabilitation of his grandfather, White Watson erected a monument to his memory at Heanor about a century after his death.
EH
Literary References: Glover 1831-3, 255-8; Thompson 1949, passim; Green 1964 (1), passim; Gunnis 1968, 416; Tomlinson 1996, 12, 32, 48; Brighton 1998, 811-8; Esterly 1998, passim; Brighton 2001, 47-9, 60-70; ODNB (Brighton)
Archival References: Chatsworth Accts, vol ix
Additional MS Sources: Chatsworth Building Accts; Watson/Chatsworth; Watson Notebooks
Collections of Drawings: Derbys RO; Alnwick Castle, Northumbs