William Watson (sinologist)
William Watson CBE (9 December 1917 – 15 March 2007) was a British art historian who was Professor of Chinese art and archaeology at the University of London. He was a leading member of the teams that organised the Genius of China exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1973 and the Great Japan Exhibition, held in 1981-82. He made a major contribution to Japanese art studies in the UK.
Watson was born in Derby, England, but moved with his family to Brazil, where his father managed a sugar-making plant. He returned to Britain in 1925 to and study at schools in Glasgow and Derby, living with relatives. Already a scholar of Welsh, in 1936 he went to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, to read French, German and Russian.
In 1939 Watson volunteered for the army, where his linguistic skills were put to use in the Intelligence Corps, with postings to Egypt and India. Here he intercepted German radio traffic for dispatch to Bletchley Park, and later interrogated Japanese prisoners of war, developing a passion for Asian languages. In 1940 he married Kay Armfield, a fellow Cambridge student.
After the war Watson joined the British Museum, where he became assistant keeper of British and medieval antiquities. He moved later to the Department of Oriental Antiquities. In 1954 he spent a year in Japan, where he encountered classic Japanese painting and sculpture, met leading scholars, and acquired a working knowledge of the language and writing. He also visited China, establishing contacts that later enabled him to play a leading role in cultural relations in the early 1970s. In late 1960 through early 1970s Watson led several archaeological expeditions to Thailand to explore pre- and proto-historic sites and their cultural relationships with early sites in Southwest China.
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