THE LATE MR JOHN WATSON, F.S.A., OF SEAHAM HARBOUR

It is scarcely just that an individual like the late Mr John Watson, of Seaham Harbour, should pass away without some lengthier notice than the obituary column of a newspaper will permit. Mr Watson was a self-made man in the truest and noblest sense. He owed nothing to fortune, or what is properly termed "Good luck." What he accomplished he did entirely through personal energy and enterprise. A few years ago his position was one of considerable importance in connection with the chemical trade of the district; but the wave of commercial depression reaching Seaham Harbour -- what place, indeed, has it spared? -- the works with which he was connected were unavoidably closed. He made an attempt to purchase them; indeed he contracted to do so for the sum of £22,000, and paid a deposit of £2,200, which, however, he was compelled to forfeit when he found himself unable to carry out the agreement. He was hoping, however, to arrange with some gentlemen for the renewal of the business when death summarily closed his schemes and his life.

Few more sanguine men have existed. He had the indomitable confidence which carries an American through failure and disappointment, as if obstacles were simply to stimulate industry, and never to dishearten or deter. Had his life been spared and moderate health been allowed, John Watson would assuredly have forced his way to prominence again in his special walk. He was a man of considerable scientific attainments, and applied himself especially to astronomical and microscopical research from an early period of his life. Vane House, where he lived, was enlarged by him in order to form an observatory, and was equipped with a variety of scientific instruments, amongst which was a telescope costing him originally not less than £500. His devotion to the stars secured him the position of Fellow of the Astronomical Society. His knowledge he was always willing to communicate for the benefit of the public in the shape of lectures or addresses, and in this capacity we have known him to convey much valuable and striking information.

Latterly, during his enforced retirement from the chemical works, he turned his activities into a channel from which he expected to derive considerable benefit, whilst at the same time he hoped to confer a boon of no small utility upon the agricultural public. This was the invention of a peculiar kind of food for plants. In plain terms, it was a new species of manure. The new vegetable pabulum, however, was not a haphazard production. It was not a mixture of ingredients selected upon mere mechanical principles, as if it were enough to analyse a plant, and then expect to produce a specimen by placing a seed in a vessel containing the exact elements required. Like most people who go deeply into any subject, he found so many critical conditions were involved that it seemed almost impossible to grapple with them satisfactorily. "The needs of a healthy growing plant," wrote he, "are so many and so various that the wonder is how any crop can attain to its full growth." For five-and-twenty years, he had given much patient study to the requirements of vegetables, one of his aims being to discover some cunning scheme for the capture of phosphorus from the atmosphere for the service of plants, as this important item of vegetable diet must, he contended, be largely existent in some oxidized form. About five years before his decease he began to experiment practically with this artificial manure, though on a diminutive scale, in his own garden and two small plots of grass; but the results were such as to surpass his expectations, confident as they were. During the course of 1882, some old grass land at Seaham Harbour, which had been dieted on his "Plant Food" was cut not less than four times, and some garden ground which could never be coaxed into producing good potatoes before, was so stimulated by this new kind of provender that it yielded a crop which would have delighted an Irishman's heart.

It is much to be regretted that the life of this busy-minded man was closed before he had time to bring his invention profitably before the public, and to mature his projects for reviving the chemical industry at Seaham Harbour. If he was sanguine even to a fault, it must be remembered that it is to these impressible, never-wearying spirits that the world owes some of its most valuable undertakings, and that there is almost as much room for dash and daring in the walks of Commerce as there is in the more conspicuous fields of military enterprise.

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