William Livingstone Watson

William Livingstone Watson (Kinross, Scotland, 1835-Ayton, Perthshire, Scotland, May 1903) was a Scottish East India merchant and an astronomer.

Watson was originally intended for a career in the church but turned instead to the law and thence to business. He was educated at the University of Edinburgh and the University of Glasgow.

Watson joined a Glasgow firm of East India merchants, James Finlay & Co., in 1855. He became a partner in this firm in 1865, and in 1876 moved to London, where he was their representative. He also participated in a number of other business activities, serving for many years as chairman of the London board of the Royal Insurance Company, and also on a number of other boards, including the Merchants’ Marine Insurance Company, the Agra Bank, the Indo-China Steam Navigation Company, the Assam_Bengal_Railway, and the Clan Line.

In 1888 Watson bought Ayton House in Perthshire, Scotland, and with it an observatory and one of the United Kingdom's largest telescopes, the 12-inch "great refractor" that has been exhibited at the Great Exhibition in 1851. He worked on this telescope with astronomers Ludwig Becker and Ralph Copeland. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1892.

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