William Watson

English physician and scientist (1715–1787).

Sir William Watson, FRS (3 April 1715 – 10 May 1787) was a British physician and scientist who was born and died in London. His early work was in botany, and he helped to introduce the work of Carl Linnaeus into England. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1741 and vice president in 1772. He was knighted in 1786. In 1746, he showed that the capacity of the Leyden jar could be increased by coating it inside and out with lead foil. In the same year, he proposed that the two types of electricity—vitreous and resinous—posited by DuFay were actually a surplus (a positive charge) and a defici