Professor W. S. Watt

Textual scholar and editor of Cicero's letters

William Smith Watt, classical scholar: born Harthill, Lanarkshire 20 June 1913; Lecturer in Greek and Greek History, Glasgow University 1937-38; Fellow and Tutor in Classics, Balliol College, Oxford, 1938-52; Regius Professor of Humanity, Aberdeen University 1952-79 (Emeritus), Curator of the University Library 1954-59, Dean of the Faculty of Arts 1963-66, Vice-Principal 1969-72; Convener, Scottish Universities Council on Entrance 1973-77; President, Classical Association of Scotland 1983-88; FBA 1989; married 1944 Dorothea Codrington Smith (one son); died Aberdeen 23 December 2002.

W. S. Watt was a distinguished Latin scholar, an exacting but generous and warm-hearted teacher, and an administrator of exceptional ability and efficiency.

Born at Harthill in Lanarkshire of farming stock, Bill Watt went from Airdrie Academy to Glasgow University in 1929, when he was not much over 16. He excelled: at the end of his four-year course he was awarded the Logan medal as the most distinguished Arts graduate of the year. Of his teachers at Glasgow, he claimed that R.G. Austin had the greatest influence on him. In their written works, they are very different, for Watt's sparse and austere writings had little room for the engaging humanity of Austin's Virgil commentaries. But there was no doubt an underlying affinity, and certainly a long-enduring friendship.

Watt went on to Balliol as a Snell Exhibitioner – the traditional path of the outstanding Glasgow graduate – in 1933. There too he had a prizewinning career, and in 1937, even before he took Greats, he was invited to succeed his former tutor, Cyril Bailey, as Fellow in Classics. He spent a year as a temporary lecturer in Greek and Greek History at Glasgow, and took up his Balliol appointment in 1938.

Thus those who entered Balliol in the troubled times of 1938-40 found Bill Watt there as a young and enthusiastic tutor, under whose guidance some pretence of normality could be maintained by means of a rigorous routine of work. His weak eyesight led to his being rejected for military service, but in May 1941 he joined the Inter-Services Topographical Department, an intelligence organisation based in Oxford whose task was to provide detailed geographical information about areas where operations were being planned.

Watt's contribution was notable. He was pleased to receive from Admiral John Godfrey, the Director of Naval Intelligence, a testimonial which spoke of his "strong personality and remarkable practical and intellectual ability" and ended, "One has the feeling that Mr Watt could take on any job with equal ability."

All this went on in a blacked-out and rather silent Oxford; but there were changes. I recall passing through on leave in the last year of the Second World War and thinking that I would perhaps call on Bill; in his room I found only a charming ATS officer: this was Dorothea (Thea) Codrington Smith, whom he had lately married, and who was to bring him so much happiness for the rest of his life.

Watt resumed work at Balliol in 1945, and remained there till 1952. He was a very successful tutor, half of whose pupils obtained Firsts in the examination for which he prepared them. He got into the habit of recording the examination results of all colleges, and in 1949 he published anonymously a table of these covering the last three years – a prototype of the later famous, or notorious, Norrington Tables.

His scholarly interests were now concentrated on Latin, and especially on Cicero's letters. In those days, textual criticism was a large part of the Oxford classical curriculum. Watt's lectures, like those of his friend and wartime colleague W.S. Barrett on Euripides, brought the art of expounding these matters to an unexampled pitch of perfection. Diagnosis of the corruption, enumeration of earlier solutions and dismissal of most of them, and finally (if possible) a probable answer: these were the constituents of what one might almost regard as a minor literary genre and a great deal of Watt's later published work in fact took precisely this form. For those who appreciated them, these lectures showed what scholarship really meant.

A chair in Scotland seemed a natural ambition, and in 1952 Watt was appointed Regius Professor of Humanity at Aberdeen. He held office till his retirement in 1979, and lived there until his death. Here too he showed himself a devoted teacher, taking trouble with the large ordinary-degree classes in Latin as well as with the carefully chosen group of his Honours students. Among these there were some excellent scholars, whom he would encourage to go on to Oxford or Cambridge, and perhaps to pursue academic careers in classics or in law. It is sad to think that this tradition has ended, for there is now no classical department at Aberdeen.

In view of his administrative abilities, it is no wonder that Watt played a notable part in university affairs. He was Curator of the University Library, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and, from 1969 to 1972, Vice-Principal. He served also on the Universities Central Council for Admissions (Ucca) and was for a long time deeply involved in the organisation of teacher training in Scotland. Such public duties occupied a great deal of time, and it was not really till his retirement that he was able to devote himself to scholarship and publication. He became a Fellow of the British Academy in 1989; at 76, he was still at the height of his powers.

The three volumes of Cicero's letters for the Oxford Classical Texts series – Epistulae ad Quintum Fratrum . . . (1958), Epistulae ad Atticum (1965) and Epistulae ad Familiares (1982) – are his most important achievement. He had an immense and very precise knowledge of Cicero's Latin (and indeed of classical and later Latin generally) and of the manuscripts and early editions which had to be used in establishing the text. He also had very clear and firm ideas of how this was to be done, and could be trenchant and outspoken in criticising the opinions and methods of others.

The only other books he published were an edition for Teubner of the minor Roman historian Velleius Paterculus (1988), whose text presents many conundrums, and a text of some poems of George Buchanan (George Buchanan: prince of poets, with Philip J. Ford, 1982) – a very proper service for a Scots Professor of Humanity to perform. But he wrote many articles, over 140 in all, only about 20 of which appeared before his retirement. Almost all are in the pattern set by those early lectures on the Ciceronian cruces. Taken together, they are an astonishing display of learning and acumen.

He continued till the end of his life publishing these fruits of his unceasing reading; there are still articles in the pipeline. He continued also scholarly correspondence with friends and colleagues at home and abroad, even after his fatal illness was diagnosed. Always a prompt and kind correspondent, he very properly regarded criticism as a duty of friendship; his approval of any idea, sparingly given, afforded the recipient not only pleasure but surprise.

Donald Russell