George Ronald Watson

• General Notes
  • G R (Ronnie) Watson who died in December was on the staff of the department of Classical and Archaeological studies 1949 - 1985, retiring as Senior Lecturer. Ronnie was educated at Bradford Grammar School and at Durham University, where he obtained First Class Honours in Classical and General Literature in 1939. During the War he was commissioned quite early in the East Yorkshire Regiment, and was taken prisoner during the fall of France in June 1940. As a prisoner of war he monitored German newspapers for information, which might be of service for escape plans. He was unfortunate enough to be a member of a group singled out for harsh treatment by the Nazis for a period of retaliation for some alleged action by the Allies. He bore no malice and subsequently gave much time to the task of Anglo-German reconciliation, above all in work for the Broxtowe-Gütersloh Twinning Association. He was incidentally an ardent European from the earliest beginnings of the European movement.
    Ronnie came to Nottingham during the first session when Nottingham was a University with its own curriculum. This enabled Ronnie to include Erasmus in his lecture list. Before he came here Ronnie had spent two years teaching Classics at Bede Grammar School, Sunderland, an apprenticeship which he found very useful, especially when he had to teach students who had started Latin or Greek at University. This was then still unusual, but has since almost become the rule. For beginners Ronnie made use of the Language Laboratory from the time when it was first installed. He took full part in extra-curricular activities of the department, acting in the University's production of the Birds in 1954, and the Classical Society's Haunted House in 1963, as well as in three Purcell Operas staged by the University. Ronnie Watson was an internationally recognised expert on the Roman Army. He wrote important articles on Roman military pay, and his book The Roman Soldier is still the only full account of living and service conditions in the roman army. The footnotes show how much learning and scholarship have gone into a highly readable text. In his time Ronnie served on many University committees. He was a long serving Secretary of the AUT, and it’s Chairman in 1974-75, being chairman of the SCR in the same year. In his year in the Chair of the AUT, Ronnie had a rather difficult time, as several members were beginning to look on the AUT as a Trade Union rather than a professional body, and felt that Ronnie's attitude was too gentlemanly. Outside the University he was for many years national Treasurer of the Classical association. He also gave much time and thought to the Co-operative movement and to the Labour Party. He was an indefatigable election foot soldier. Ronnie Watson was a man of humanity and public spirit, a man of peace and a conciliator, very straight; he said little and did much.

Click here for details of George Ronald's family with Kathleen Kelsall

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