Thomas Augustus WatsonBorn 18 Jan 1854; died 13 Dec 1934 at age 80.American telephone pioneer and shipbuilder who was one of the original organizers of the Bell Telephone Company. He later turned to shipbuilding and constructed a number of vessels for the United States government. In 1872 he got a job in Boston in the electrical shop of Charles Williams, Jr., at 109 Court Street. A number of inventors had their models made at Williams' shop, and in 1874 Watson did some work for Alexander Graham Bell, with whom he worked thereafter during all the experimental period of the telephone and the years that followed until it was commercially established. Thomas Watson was given an interest in the business (1877) and when Bell went to Europe he became the research and technical head of the Bell Telephone Company. |
