Hugh Watt

Hugh Watt (1848 – 16 March 1921) was a Scottish merchant and Liberal politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1885 to 1892. His career ended in scandal and imprisonment. Early life Watt was the only son of John Watt, Sheriff of Ayrshire and his wife Jane Baird. He was educated at Kilmarnock Academy and at the University of Geneva. He was a merchant in London, Liverpool, and Glasgow and chairman of Maxim-Weston Electric Co. and the New Chile Mining Co. He was the author of "Lectures on Practical Electricity." Political career At the 1885 general election Watt was elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for the newly created Camlachie division of Glasgow, and was re-elected in 1886. Watt became party to several legal battles. In June 1888, he was suing a fellow MP, Charles Cameron, who represented Glasgow College. Cameron had claimed in his newspaper North British Daily Mail that an address given by Watt was plagiarism. In July 1892, Watt was forced to pay damages after losing a libel action. Watt's biggest legal entanglement concerned his marriage and acrimonious divorce. At the general election in July 1892, he stood again for re-election, this time as an Independent Liberal, but came a poor fourth with only 179 votes (2.3% of the total).