Watts, William Walter, Rev. (1856–1920)
He was born in 1856 in Devon, England.
Because of ill health he
was sent by his church to Australia in 1887 (Brisbane and later northern New South
Wales) to recuperate.
He moved to Sydney in 1895.
His major collections were made
whilst he was minister of the Presbyterian Church in Ballina, far North Coast of New
South Wales, and many collections were made at outlying timber camps at a time
when the Big Scrub was being cut to open up the land for farming.
In 1909 it was arranged that —
"Rev. W.W. Watts and myself [Mr. A.E. Goddard the
then curator] shall enter into a complete and detailed examination of the mosses
during 1909 from the standpoint of external morphology and histology so that the
greatest possible use and value may accrue from the collection in the herbarium."
(Sydney Botanic Gardens Annual Report 1909).
However, Goddard left for South
Africa in 1909 and Rev. William Watts became Honorary Curator of Cryptogams (1909-1916) until
he moved to Victoria.
In 1911 the Thomas Whitelegge collections, including mosses and lichens purchased from Goddard, were added to the Herbarium.
The collections of William
Forsyth and W.W. Watts (more than 12,000 specimens) were incorporated after their
deaths.
Apart from his contributions to bryology in terms of specimens collected, it was
Watts' publications with Brotherus and Stephani (17 in all), that brought
the attention of the world to Australian, particularly New South Wales and Queensland taxa (e.g. Brotherus & Watts 1912, 1915, Stephani & Watts 1914 etc).
He was probably the greatest moss authority of New South Wales, writing many articles for the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of N.S.W. during the years 1900 to 1918. His most noteworthy, if unfinished, contribution was a "Census of Australian Mosses", 1902-05, in collaboration with Thomas Whitelegge.
Rev. Watts made several collecting trips to Victoria and, four years before his death, was transferred (1916) to Wycheproof in that State – a very poor locality for mosses. The principal bryophyte specimens accumulated by Watts and Whitelegge are housed at the National Herbarium, Sydney.
Some 167
new moss species and more than 70 hepatics were named based on Watts' collections.
Source: Willis, J.H. (1949) Botanical pioneers in Victoria-II. Victorian Naturalist 66:103-109
https://www.botanicgardens.org.au/sites/default/files/2023-09/Volume-3%281%29-1993-Ramsay215-229.pdf
Cunninghamia Vol. 3(1): 1993,
'Bryophytes of the Royal Botanic Gardens,
Government House and the Domain, Sydney',
by
H.P. Ramsay, R.G. Coveny, E.A. Brown and A.K. Brooks.
Portrait photo: Churchill, J. (ed) (2015), The Royal Botanic Garden Sydney, the first 200 years, p. 95, Halstead Press, Ultimo, NSW [original image source indicated on p. 264 as Daniel Solander Library, Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust, Sydney]
Collecting localities for 'Watts, W.W.' from AVH (12/8/2021)
Data from 15,682 specimens
