George Watson (1892-1965)

Abstract

George Watson, retired district manager of the Hudson's Bay Company, died at Lachine, Que. on 25 December, 1965. He was born on 25 September, 1892 in Aberdeen, Scotland. After finishing his education and working for a short time there, he, like so many of his young fellow countrymen, joined the Hudson's Bay Company and came to Canada in June, 1914. After spending three years at Norway House in northern Manitoba, he was transferred to Moose Factory, James Bay, where he remained until 1925, first as district accountant and later as assistant district manager. At that time, when communications were not what they are today, both these places were the administrative and distribution centres of the large Indian territories around them. Coming to Montreal in 1926, he was appointed assistant to the manager of the then recently amalgamated districts comprising Quebec, Labrador, Ungava, and the Eastern Arctic. Promoted to district manager in 1931, he directed the operations of several of these areas until his retirement in 1954, after forty years of service. During most of this period, he had occasion to travel extensively throughout these territories and thus acquired an intimate knowledge of them and of their economic and sociological problems that is given to few today. Rather reluctantly George Watson came out of retirement to serve as temporary Director of the Montreal office of the Arctic Institute from 1955 to 1957. While there, his keen administrative ability and long experience in northern work proved to be most useful. George Watson was married in August 1919 to Edith Parsloe Cruickshank, also an Aberdonian, who had entered Canada by way of Hudson Strait and Hudson Bay for her marriage in Moose Factory. He is survived by his wife and one son, George Jr., both of whom reside in Lachine, Que.