People Australia

James Watson, sketch, 1894

Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 14 June 1894, p 5

James (Jimmy) Watson (1845-1921) printer, trade union official, political activist and newspaper publisher 

Birth: 1845 at Aberdeen, Scotland, son of John Watson, clothier, and Ann, née Cormack. Marriage: 29 August 1869 with Presbyterian forms at the residence of the bride’s parents, Pyrmont, Sydney, NSW, to Jane Harper Scott (1851-1914), born at Edinburgh. They had four daughters and two sons; two of the children died in childhood. Death: 16 January 1921 at St Aubin’s private hospital, Manly, New South Wales; usual residence Crown road, Queenscliff, Victoria. Religion: Presbyterian. 

• Joined Glasgow Printers Union 1865, serving apprenticeship at Messrs Hedderwick and Sons, of Queens Printing Office, Glasgow.
• Came to NSW in 1866 and worked as a compositor at the Sydney Morning Herald for about thirty years.
• Secretary of the Sydney Typographical Union from 1881 to-83. Founder of Sydney Trades Hall, representing Newcastle wharf labourers and proponent of conciliation, arbitration and cooperation; secretary of surplus labour committee within the Trades and Labor Council.
• Editor of Labor Advocate, ‘a man of rare intelligence and a rich fund of saving common sense’.
• In 1894 he was the selected Labor Electoral League candidate for the seat of Cook in the NSW Legislative Assembly and in 1901 stood as the Australian Labor Party candidate for the electorate of Lang in the first Federal parliamentary election.
• The Typographical Association presented him with a gold chain and an inscribed medallion in July 1900 when he resigned from active membership in anticipation of starting a new paper at Arncliffe, though he was allowed to remain as an honorary member.
• In about 1901 he founded the Rockdale Citizen, a newspaper in the St George district of Sydney, printed at Arncliffe, later transferring the premises to Rockdale. He sold the business to F. J. Coombes in about 1910, when he also resigned his membership of the Arncliffe Progress Association owing to ill health.
• Was an old age pensioner in his later years. Cause of death: senility (5 years) and pneumonia (4 days).

Sources
Labor Advocate, 20 June 1916.