Watson

(James), English upholder of a free pre , b. Malton (Yorks), 21 Sept. 1799. During the prosecution of Carlile and his shopmen in 1822 he volunteered to come from London to Leeds. In Feb. ’23 he was arrested for selling Palmer’s Principles of Nature , tried 23 April, and sentenced to twelve months’ imprisonment, during which he read Gibbon, Hume, and Mosheim. When liberated he became a compositor on the Republican . In ’31 Julian Hibbert gave him his type and pre es, and he i ued Volney’s Lectures on History . In Feb. ’33 he was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment for selling The Poor Man’s Guardian . Hibbert left him £450, which he used in printing d’Holbach’s System of Nature , Volney’s Ruins , F. Wright’s Lectures , R. D. Owen’s pamphlets, Paine’s works, and other volumes. Died at Norwood, 29 Nov. 1874.