Occupation writer, scholar Name George Watson | Died August 2, 2013, Cambridge | |
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Books The lost literature of socialism, The English ideology, Dogs Have Souls Too: The Spirit, British literature since 1945, The story of the novel Similar People Hugh Sykes Davies, Sterling Watson, Conrad Russell - 5th Earl R, David Steel | ||
George Grimes Watson (13 October 1927 – 2 August 2013) was a scholar, literary critic, historian, a fellow of St John's College and professor of English at Cambridge University.
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Early life
Watson was born in Brisbane, Australia, on 13 October 1927. He was educated at Brisbane Boys' College and the University of Queensland, where he graduated in English in 1948. He secured a scholarship for a second degree and graduated in English from Trinity College at Oxford University in 1950.
Career
A talented linguist, he worked for the European Commission, both as an interpreter and checking its publications.
Watson became a lecturer of English at Cambridge University in 1959 and a Fellow of St John's College in 1961.
He met C. S. Lewis at Oxford's Socratic Club in 1948 and attended his lectures. Later, he counted him among his finest professors and, after Watson joined Cambridge, among his colleagues. Among Watson's English students at St John's was Douglas Adams.
Politics
He was an active member of the Liberal Party. He was a member of Liberal Party co-ownership committee from 1951-57. He stood in Cheltenham in the 1959 general election. In the 1979 European election, he fought the Leicester European Parliament constituency. He was senior treasurer of the Cambridge University Liberal Club from 1978 to 1992.
In his will he left £950,000 to the Liberal Democrats and a painting, Rocky Landscape with Saint John the Baptist by Joos de Momper the Younger, to the National Gallery, London.
Books
Watson's works, many of them reprinted, in the Library of Congress include: