William Walter Watts FSA

Born 1862
Died 1948

Active: 1907

Curator

"...In 1879 he joined the Museum of Science and Art, South Kensington, and was posted to the Circulation Department. In 1890 he was promoted Assistant Keeper and transferred to the main museum where he remained for five years until a further step carried him to the Bethnal Green Museum. In 1897 he returned to the Circulation Department with the rank of Keeper, remaining in charge until the separation of the Science Museum from the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1908. In 1902, being already a rising authority on English silver, he was put in charge also of the Metalwork Department. It was rich in goldsmith's work but had no representative collection of English examples of the art. Watts now set himself to build up such a collection with a success that was all the more remarkable because the purchase prices were largely provided by private persons. Together with his assistant, the late H P Mitchell, Watts reorganized the Ironwork Gallery so that it remained one of the most attractive features of the museum until it was dismantled for the 'Britain Can Make It Exhibition' in 1946..."

Extract from the The Times, 29 December 1948, quoted on the Victoria and Albert Museum website: http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/periods_styles/features/history/staff_obituaries/metalwork/watts/index.html [accessed 29 July 2010]

Citing this record

'William Walter Watts FSA', Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851-1951, University of Glasgow History of Art and HATII, online database 2011 [http://sculpture.gla.ac.uk/view/person.php?id=msib2_1215777100, accessed 29 Mar 2023]