Bob Watson - sprinting champion
A famous race in Maitland
On 2 November 1878, Robert Fletcher Watson, or Bob as he preferred to be called, won the Championship of Australia for a ‘foot runner’ from John (Jack) Applitt at the Louth Park Racecourse (now the Showground) before a crowd of between 6000 and 7000 excited Maitlanders and others from the north.
The result of the race was a great surprise, even to Watson's own intimate friends, and the excitement after the race baffles description. The cheering was deafening, hats, overcoats, and umbrellas being thrown into the air. Immediately the victor had clothed himself he was seized by the crowd, and being placed upon the shoulders of two men, headed by a band of music, he was escorted up Devonshire Street to High Street, and thence to his training quarters, followed by an immense crowd of people. (Burrowa News, 8 November 1878)
The race was over 200 yards for a prize of £400 (about $60,000 in today’s money) and the championship. Bob won by 6 yards on an uneven track chipped out of grass in 19.5 seconds. Many of those in the crowd regarded him as the best in the world, for he had beaten outstanding overseas runners who had come to Australia.
Watson’s career
The 1878 race was Watson’s last and most triumphant race in a short career which netted him enough money and recognition to set up a comfortable life as a commercial traveller, living in ‘Llanillo’ 40 Wallace St, South Maitland. Before that he established his widowed mother in a house in Church St where she died in 1885 leaving an estate of £141 to Robert. Another clue that he saw the care of his mother as a priority is that he did not marry until after his mother had died.
Foot racing, or pedestrianism, had always been hugely popular in the colony and betting on races was all the rage. In Maitland in the 1840s it had mainly been the longer races that were popular. In 1846, for example, John Neal, of Maitland, and the ‘Morpeth Pieman’ (William Burrell), walked a match for £10-a-side over a distance of ten miles on the Morpeth road. Neal was the leader for much of the race and his odds blew out, but in the fourth mile he began to flag and the Pieman passed him. Neal gave up, and left the Pieman to complete the distance. Between 200 and 300 people were present and betting.
Watson was, in contrast to the Pieman, a sprinter and middle-distance runner. He was born in Raye, County Donegal, Ireland in June 1854 and came to Australia the following year on the Ebba Brahe with father Thomas, a farm labourer, mother Eliza, and siblings Matilda, William and Anne. Another sibling, Samuel, was born in 1861 in Maitland. It would appear that his father died in 1862 so Robert Watson’s ability to earn money would have been a boon to his family. They were staunch Presbyterians and Watson remained so all his life despite being a foundation member of the local St Patrick’s Day sports and being surrounded by Catholic in-laws.
At an early age (probably about 12) he started working as an apprentice saddler, but his ability as a sprinter changed his direction. It appears his first race was at ‘Llanillo’, a station north of Walgett, over 125 yards for a couple of sovereigns. He was beaten by ‘Charlie’ a local Indigenous man. Clearly he thought highly of this race as he named his South Maitland house after the property. This was probably a spur of the moment race as Watson was working in Scone at the time, possibly delivering sheep and cattle to the station which had just tapped the artesian bore.
His first big race was on Boxing Day, 1872, over 160 yards with 14 starters. This race was unusual in that it had multiple starters. Watson competed in only a few multiple starter handicap races during his running career. Once he established his credentials, most of his races were match races against one competitor, some from handicaps but most from scratch.
In 1873 he competed in at least three major events netting over £150 including his personal favourite: winning the Sydney Cup. The prize, of £75, was for aggregate points in races over 150, 300, 400 and 880 yards. Races over distances like these, apart from the 880 (close to 800 metres), eventually faded out as standardised race distances like 100, 220 and 440 yards (and later their metric equivalents) became accepted world-wide.
Watson’s success was not due entirely to himself. Match racing required both contestants to cover the wager and it would appear that James Fletcher, the coal king of Newcastle, provided the financial back-up. Watson was also coached by Dave Dunlop of Hamilton.
Numerous match and handicap races in the district kept him in form until the arrival of the champion English runner, Frank Hewitt. To that time, Hewitt was undoubtedly the fastest man to ever leave England to compete in Australia. Watson met Hewitt on the Maitland racecourse on 6 May 1876 over 400 yards for a stake of £400. Hewitt took an early lead but Watson gained on him and won by half a metre on a heavy track. Hewitt declared Watson to be the gamest man he had ever met, and the only man who had ever passed him in a race.
Sketch of Hewitt and Watson running, 1876
Honest and the best in the world
For the times, extraordinary amounts of money were involved and the betting was intense. It was sometimes a very dodgy business and one of the reasons Watson was held in high esteem was that he was an honest contestant in all his races and dealings. He was reputedly once offered £1,000 to throw a race but refused. Many in the 1878 crowd had put money on Watson the outsider and, when he won, the cheering was deafening with hats, overcoats and umbrellas thrown into the air (but not the betting slips, one would venture).
People considered him the best in the world because he defeated Hewitt and also Stone Davis, a noted American runner who toured Australia with a circus. Watson’s running times - on less-than-ideal tracks, wearing soft leather slippers, full length (but short-sleeved) woollen body stockings and belted woollen shorts - bear comparison with some of today’s best. In 1874, in a 200-yard race along Belmore Rd (then a dirt track in what was to become Lorn) he recorded a time of 19.3 seconds. For comparison, the current men’s 200 metres (roughly 220 yards) record, set on a level, modern, synthetic track, is 19.19 seconds set by Usain Bolt in the World Championships in Berlin in 2009.
Watson decided to leave the running scene following his 1878 win. He clearly decided going out on a high was the best way to leave. He was offered lucrative match races for the next couple of years (they even advertised that a race winner would have the right to challenge him) but he never resiled from his decision.
Life after running
Watson remained involved in numerous sports in Maitland for the rest of his life, contributing to running, trotting, swimming and cricket as well as holding executive positions on the Hunter District Rugby Union and then the Hunter District Rugby League.
He married Margaret Ellen Cuthbertson in 1886 at Hamilton. They had nine children two of whom died in infancy. Three sons served in the AIF during the First World War, the stress of which contributed greatly to Margaret Watson’s early death in January 1919. Watson lived on until 7 April 1937. Four sons and three daughters survived him, and many of his descendants still live in the Maitland area.
Much vaunted in his lifetime, Bob Watson has largely been forgotten in Maitland. He is worthy of recognition for his considerable athletic prowess as well as for the integrity he displayed in using it.
References
Belcher, Mick ‘Our past: Watson – a good sport deserving recognition’, Maitland Mercury, 29 October, 2021.
Burrowa News
Maitland Mercury
Sydney Mail
Sydney Morning Herald
Town and Country Journal
