Among those listed in Parkhurst prison on the Isle of Wight in the Census of 1881 was John Selby Watson, aged 71, born in Crayford in Kent. His profession was listed as Clerk in Holy Orders and his marital status as widower. Both were significant.
Early Life
Although John Watson's origins seem to have been lowly, he had a supportive family so that by the time he reached adulthood, his prospects were good. His grandfather tutored him to a point where he was able to enter Trinity College Dublin and at the end of his time there in 1839 he became a Deacon to the Bishop of Ely. There followed ordination into the priesthood by the Bishop of Bath and Wells and he was appointed to a parish in Somerset.
Love and Marriage
Early on Watson became engaged to a young Irish woman, Anne Armstrong but it was a long engagement as he was too poor to marry. In 1844 however he moved to London taking a post as Headmaster of Stockwell Grammar School and the following year he and Anne were finally married.
His time at the school seems to have been fulfilling and during this period he wrote prolifically on all manner of subjects from religious books, to biographies of the Quaker George Fox, the rebellious John Wilkes and the radical William Cobbett. He went on to produce a volume on The Reasoning Power in Animals published in 1867 and translated various classical texts. Then, after twenty-five years service, the school got into difficulties and because of falling numbers, they let Watson go, denying him a pension.
Problems and Poverty
This was clearly a difficult period for him, shock at the loss of his job plus the looming problem of how to sustain his lifestyle. Perhaps Anne Watson was not the most supportive of wives. Perhaps she was a scold. It has been suggested that she was a drinker. Whatever the reason, in October 1871, his servant Ellen Prynne arrived for work to find her master unconscious. He had written two letters, one containing her wages and a second addressed to his doctor.
It turned out that Watson had taken prussic acid but it did not kill him. His letter to the doctor confessed to having murdered Anne whose body was found in another room. Her skull had been shattered by a heavy object, probably the butt of a pistol. She had been dead for about two days.
Watson was tried at the Old Bailey. His defence might have been one of provocation but he chose instead to claim temporary insanity at the time of the act. In view of his confession the jury was bound to find him guilty but he must have appealed to them sufficiently for them to recommend mercy. The plea however was ignored by the Judge, Mr Justice Byles who donned his black cap and sentenced Watson to hang.
There followed an appeal and a flurry of activity, searching for a way out. The Home Secretary then overturned the death sentence, commuting it to life in prison. Following on a plea of insanity Watson would normally have been consigned to Broadmoor but he was sent instead to Parkhurst. There was speculation that the prospect of hanging a man of the cloth was felt to be an embarrassment so that the Home Office intervened.
Another View of Selby Watson
Some years later, in an autobiography Mr F Vincent Brooks recorded how he had been withdrawn from Stockwell school following a frenzied beating by Watson, after having been wrongly accused of breaking a window. With hindsight, Brooks concluded that Watson was "a man of absolutely uncontrollable temper and quite unsuited for a headmaster." Perhaps Anne Watson had had good reason to drink after all.
Watson remained in Parkhurst Prison for the next twelve years and on July 6 1844 he died following a fall from a hammock. He was buried in nearby Carisbrooke Cemetery.
Sources: Oxford DNB
Vauxhall Civic Society, history John Selby Watson
UK Census 1881 Parkhurst Prison
