Richard Watson (Bishop of Llandaff)

Richard Watson

Richard Watson (born August 1737 in Heversham , † July 15, 1816 in Calgarth Park near Windermere , Westmorland ) was an Anglican theologian, bishop and chemist.

Watson studied from 1754 at the Trinity College of Cambridge University with a bachelor's degree in 1759, where he particularly focused on mathematics and was in the Tripos examinations Second Wrangler. He became a Fellow of Trinity College in 1760 and received his Magister Artium in 1762. In 1764 he became professor of chemistry at Christ's College . He later received his doctorate in theology and in 1771 became Regius Professur of Divinity at Cambridge. In 1773 he married and in 1774 he was a prebend of Trinity College. In 1779 he became rector in Northwold and archdeacon in Ely . In 1782 he became bishop of the Welsh diocese of Llandaff . From 1790 he established Calgarth Park in Westmorland as a country estate .

As a chemist he analyzed minerals and isolated lead in 1781 (and sulfur from galena in 1783) and zinc from minerals in 1786 with industrial applications (zinc extraction in Bristol, lead in Derbyshire). He obtained a gas from hard coal by dry distillation and examined the influence of salt concentration on the lowering of the freezing point (1771) and the influence of pressure on the boiling point (1782).

As a theologian, he took part in the debate led by Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine about the French Revolution as an opponent of the revolution and its attacks on religion ( A treatise upon the authenticity of the Scriptures, and the truth of the Christian religion 1792, An apology for the Bible , 1796).

His autobiography, completed in 1814, was published posthumously in 1817 ( Anecdotes of the life of Richard Watson ).

In 1769 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society and was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

Fonts

• An essay on the subject of chemistry and their general divisions 1774
• Institutiones Chemicarum in Praelectionibus Academis Explicatarum pars Metallurgica 1768

literature

• Winfried R. Pötsch (lead), Annelore Fischer, Wolfgang Müller: Lexicon of important chemists , Harri Deutsch 1989, p. 446
• William P. Palmer: Richard Watson, Bishop of Llandaff (1737-1816): A chemist of the chemical revolution , Australian Journal of Education in Chemistry (Perth, Australia: Royal Australian Chemical Institute), Volume 68, 2007, pp. 33– 38.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Alexander Gordon, Watson, Richard (1737-1816) in the Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 60 on Wikisource.
2. ↑ Calgarth Park: History. Retrieved February 1, 2016 . 

predecessor	Office	successor
Thomas Rutherforth	Regius Professur of Divinity 1783–1807	John Randolph