Sir Renny Watson
Client and project assessor
Sir (Willliam) Renny Watson (1838–1900) was a multi-faceted mechanical engineer and ‘public spirited citizen’, ‘whose striking and energetic personality were of a type not uncommon in Victorian Glasgow’s civic life’. 1 The Hawick-born son of a woollen manufacturer, Watson travelled extensively for an Oldham textile-machinery firm, before joining the established sugar-refining equipment-makers Mirrlees & Tait (later Mirrlees, Watson & Co.) in 1868. 2
The company diversified, forming Watson, Laidlaw & Co. in 1883, making centrifugal separators, and Mirrlees, Watson & Yaryan in 1889, for water-evaporating machines and later, Rudolph Diesel’s new type of engine. 3 In the same year, Watson leased 7000 acres in the independent kingdom of Hawaii to form the Hawaiian Sugar Company, about which he lectured to the Royal Scottish Geographical Society. 4
Watson became a Glasgow City Councillor in 1880, and, as a Clyde Trustee, helped to organise the construction of a graving dock and the new Cessnock Docks. 5 He became chairman of the Glasgow and Southwestern Railway in 1890, and was allegedly the first Glaswegian to adopt electric lighting (a ‘first’ claimed for several others). 6 Watson served on numerous charities, including the Bellahouston Trustees and the Victoria Infirmary’s Board of Governors. 7
Watson married a distant relative, Mary Caird, sister of Sir James Key Caird, a wealthy jute mill-owner who donated parks and public buildings to Dundee. The brothers-in-law shared an enthusiasm for international exploration: Watson hosted Arctic traveller Fridtjof Nansen during a visit to Glasgow, while Caird sponsored Shackleton’s famous Antarctic expedition. 8
Notes:
1: 'Watson, Sir (William) Renny’, Who Was Who, Oxford University Press, 2007, online edition, www.ukwhoswho.com [accessed 26 November 2012]; Glasgow Herald, 20 April 1900, p. 9.
2: Census information, www.ancestry.co.uk [accessed 25 November 2012]; 'Obituary: Sir William Renny Watson', Transactions of the Institution of Shipbuilders and Engineers in Scotland, 43, 1899–1900, pp. 364–5; Scotsman, 9 April 1900, p. 6.
3: 'Mirrlees Watson Co.', and 'Mirrlees', Company Histories, Grace's Guide: British Industrial History, 2007, www.gracesguide.co.uk [accessed 27 November 2012]; 'Brief History and Development of Mirrlees Blackstone', Engine Company History, Anson Engine Museum Website, 2007, www.enginemuseum.org [accessed 26 November 2012]; Derek A. Dow, 'Sir William Renny Watson', in A. Slaven and S. Checkland, eds, Dictionary of Scottish Business Biography 1860–1960, vol. 1, Aberdeen: University Press, 1986, pp. 194–5.
4: The Times, 10 July 1936, p. 18B; 'Proceedings', Scottish Geographical Magazine, 11, 1895, p. 189; 'Robinson, Aubrey', in J. W. Siddall, ed., Men of Hawaii, Honolulu: Honolulu Star Bulletin, 1921, vol. 2, p. 341; 'Kauai Sugar Plantation Tours: History of Sugar at Gay & Robinson, Inc.', Gay and Robinson Tours: Sugar Plantation Photo Tours, Ebook, p. 1, www.allenhemphill.com/Gay%20and%20Robinson%20sugar%20plantation.pdf [accessed 26 November 2012].
5: Glasgow Herald, 19 August 1892, p. 7; 3 October 1896, p. 7.
6: Glasgow Herald, 19 August 1892, p. 7.
7: Derek A. Dow, 'Sir William Renny Watson', in A. Slaven and S. Checkland, eds, Dictionary of Scottish Business Biography 1860–1960, vol. 1, Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1986, pp. 194–5.
8: Mary Carid's father was not Watson's uncle as stated by Dow: Derek A. Dow, 'Sir William Renny Watson', in A. Slaven and S. Checkland, eds, Dictionary of Scottish Business Biography 1860–1960, vol. 1, Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1986, pp. 194–5; 'Sir James Caird', Biography, The James Caird Society, www.jamescairdsociety.com/sirjc.php [accessed 27 November 2012]; Glasgow Herald, 9 April 1900, p. 6.
