Elliot Lovegood Grant Watson (14 June 1885 – 21 May 1970) was a writer and biologist. Among some 40 books and many essays and short stories he wrote six 'Australian' novels and several scientific-philosophical works that challenge Darwinism, or the mechanism of evolutionary theory, as an entire explanation for the development of life on earth.

Biography

Born at Staines, Middlesex in England, the son of a successful London barrister, Reginald Grant Watson, and Lucy, née Fuller, a strong-minded woman with an interest in natural history and literature, 'Peter' (as he was called) visited Australia first as a child in 1890, soon after the death of his younger brother. During this visit, to relatives in Tasmania, his father also died. In rather more impoverished circumstances, Grant Watson was educated at Bedales School and Trinity College, Cambridge (B.A., 1909, with first-class honours in natural sciences) after which, at 24, he joined social anthropologist Alfred Brown (later Alfred Radcliffe-Brown) and Daisy Bates on an ethnological expedition in Western Australia.

After further travels in Fiji, Canada and Ceylon he enlisted in the British Army but after a mental breakdown was seconded to perform biological research with parasitologist Clifford Dobell the Burroughs-Wellcome laboratory for tropical diseases in London. Later he taught officer cadets at a private college in Storrington. His autobiographical works But to What Purpose: The Autobiography of a Contemporary (1946) and Journey Under the Southern Stars (1968) give vivid accounts of his physical and intellectual journeys. In later life he also supported himself through BBC radio broadcasts, extramural university lectures and practice as a lay psychologist.

Selected publications

Australian novels

  • Where Bonds are Loosed 1914
  • The Mainland 1917
  • The Desert Horizon 1923
  • Daimon 1925
  • The Nun and the Bandit 1935
  • The Partners 1933 (as Lost Man! 1934 U.S.)

Other novels

  • Deliverance 1920
  • Shadow and Sunlight 1921
  • Moses: the Lord of the Prophets 1929
  • Moonlight in Ur 1932
  • It's Up to You 1933
  • Country Holiday 1938 (for children)
  • A Mighty Man of Valour 1939
  • Priest Island 1940

Short stories

  • Innocent Desires

Non-fiction

  • English Country 1924
  • With the Australian Aborigines 1930 (for children)
  • The Common Earth 1932
  • Enigmas of Natural History 1936 (published in England)
  • Mysteries of Natural History 1937 (US republication of Enigmas of Natural History)
  • Man and His Universe 1940
  • Nature Abounding (ed) 1941
  • Walking with Fancy 1943
  • The Leaves Return 1947
  • Profitable Wonders: Some Problems of Plant and Animal Life 1949
  • What to Look for in Nature/Winter/Summer/Autumn/Spring 1959–61 (for children)
  • Nature's Changing Course 1961
  • The Mystery of Physical Life 1964
  • Animals in Splendour 1967

Autobiography

  • But to What Purpose 1946
  • Departures 1948
  • Journey under the Southern Stars 1968

Poems

  • Four Sacred Women and Other Verses 1960

References

  • Guide to the Papers of E. L. Grant Watson at National Library of Australia
  • Australian Dictionary of Biography, Watson, Elliot Lovegood Grant (1885–1970)