Captain William Edward Prior WATSON (1938)

2nd Battalion, Somerset Light Infantry
Born 25 March 1920 in Sculcoates, Yorkshire
Die2d 5 April 1944, aged 24
Buried at Cassino War Cemetery, Italy. Also commemorated on his parents’ headstone at St Augustine's Church, Hedon, East Yorkshire.

William Watson was the only son of James Watson (Mertonian, 1899) and Jessie Burton, née Prior, of Holyrood House, Hedon, Yorkshire.

He was educated at Horris Hill Prep School, and at Radley College from 1933 to 1938, where he was a member of the Politics and Debating Societies.

His obituary in The Radleian reads:

He was an active and energetic figure in our midst, eager for talk and discussion, delighting in the company of many friends, and always ready to uphold downright views. He played cricket and hockey for College and Social teams with the utmost abandon and enjoyment. He was a Junior Prefect and a member of several societies. When he left he went to Merton College, Oxford, to read law. On the outbreak of war he joined up at once as a gunner in the RA. In 1941 he was commissioned in the S.L.I., after a short period of service with the East Yorks Regiment. His death will be the cause of great sorrow to a wide circle of friends and acquaintance