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George Watson F | |||||||||||
| Joseph Watson [CFT #2539] Born: 1873 Died: 1922-Mar |
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| Joseph was the only son of George Watson, a soap manufacturer of Donisthorpe House near Moor Allerton, Leeds, Yorkshire. He was recalled before completing his degree to become Chairman of the company at a very young age. The business was founded by his grandfather and built up by his father and his uncle Charles. Joseph turned it into a business which ruled the market in North East England and was William Lever's biggest rival. His attempt with William Lever to form a Soap Trust Monopoly was frustrated and by July 1917 Lever Brothers (later Unilever) had bought him out completely. He had sold his half share in the Planter's Margarine Co Ltd to Lever in 1915 which he had been supplying from his Olympia Oil & Cake Co Ltd at Selby, then the biggest linseed oil crushing and refining plant in Europe. He sold the other half to a Dutch company who outbid Levers. Some of the proceeds from these sales were invested in the Agricultural Research Department at Leamington Spa and he also founded the Olympic Agricultural Co Ltd and the balance was put into the acquisition of some 20,000 acres at Selby, Yorks; Manton Down, Wiltshire; Sudbourne, Suffolk; Offchurch, Warwickshire and Thorney, Cambridgeshire. Near the start of the First World War, Joseph's skills were put to good use. He was Chairman of a six-man Leeds Munitions Committee which was charged with establishing 12 National Shell Filling Factories. The first was built at Barnbow near Leeds and remained the largest such operation in the country having despatched 566,000 tons of finished ammunition by the time of the Armistice. Joseph became a prominent racehorse owner and in 1819 acquired the famous Manton training establishment near Marlborough. In 1921 he won The Oaks with 'Love in Idleness' and the Grand Prix de Paris (the world's richest racing prize) with 'Lemonora' which also gained a third place in the Derby that year. The jockey was Joe Childs for all three races which earned Joseph the name Mr Lucky Watson in the racing press. His winnings allowed him to donate £50,000 to Leeds General Infirmary of which he had been a board member since 1906. A half length bronze bas-relief portrait of him is displayed at the George Street entrance. On 25th January 1922 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Manton of Compton Verney in the County of Warwick. He had purchased the Robert Adam neo-classical mansion Compton Verney from Lord Willoughby de Broke in 1921 but had never taken up residence due to his sudden death in March 1922 from a heart attack at the age of only 49. |
1: 1899 George Miles Watsonc W/C 2: 1900 Robert Fraser Watsonc W 3: 1901 Alastair Joseph Watsonc W/C 4: 1906 Richard Mark Watsonc | ||||||||||
| 4 Children | |||||||||||
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