John Watson and the Quaker Meeting House at Kilconner, County Carlow, Ireland

Introduction

Kilconner is a Townland situated in the mainly agricultural County of Carlow in the midlands of Ireland. In 1663, John Watson, a settler probably from Pentre, Balsley in Montgomeryshire, Wales and who is said to have come to Ireland in 1658, leased the Townland from Henry Smith-wick. One of his sons, also John, became a Quaker in 1673 and, having inherited his father’s estates in 1675, built a meeting house on this property near his dwelling house circa 1680, which subsequently served the needs of Quakers living in the surrounding area for the greater part of the next 200 years. The Meeting, a constituent member of Newgarden Men’s (from 1714 Carlow Men’s and ultimately Carlow Monthly) Meeting, became important and well patronized. The purpose of this paper is to render an account of its founder, John Watson, and to expand on what became of his legacy, the Kilconner Meeting House.

Sources

Published summary accounts of the life of John include works by Wight & Rutty,¹ Leadbeater² and Harrison.³ They differ little in detail because all derive most of their information from a contemporary anonymous and unpublished account written shortly after his death. The original appears to have been in the possession of the Grubb family, but cannot now be traced. The text was copied by Benjamin Grubb (1805–1858) into his four-volume commonplace book.⁴ Additional sources include the minutes of the Newgarden and Carlow Meetings, other minutes including those of Provincial and National meetings, cited by Greaves,⁵ and a range of contemporary documents held in the Friends Historical Library Dublin.

In the 20th century a descendant, Fielding Watson, settled in Altamont House, Co. Carlow, where he and his descendants accumulated and retained substantial numbers of family documents and photographs that are referred to in this paper as the “Altamont Collection”. The property, with the superb garden that his family had created, was bequeathed to the people of Ireland on the death of his daughter Corona. The papers are currently stored at the Office of Public Works, Kilkenny, and are not available for consultation. However copies of the documents cited herein are held by the senior author and by Friends Historical Library Dublin.⁶

David Butler visited the remnants of the meeting house and included a summary history of the Meeting with his sketch plan⁷ in his epic work The Quaker Meeting Houses of Ireland. Other primary sources include Irish Land Memorials, several wills executed by members of the Watson family and legal documents archived in the Friends Historical Library Dublin.⁸

In contrast to the paucity of information on the meeting house, much is known about its individual members from the minutes of men’s and women’s meetings and certificates of removals, disownments and resignations held in the same library. The latter records, together with the births, marriages and deaths transcribed in the 1850s to a series of manuscript National Registers, have been digitised under the title ‘Megadatabase’ .

Who was John Watson?

Although he played an important and consistent role in Quaker affairs, few records of John’s background have survived. There are no records in the National Registers of his birth or place of birth. The earliest information comes from an entry in a Leinster Province Meeting family list⁹: “John Watson son of John Watson came with his father a Planter out of England 1658 and married Anne Tomlinson whose father arrived in Ireland about the same time.” This entry also lists their ten children, all born at Kilconner (also spelt Kilconnor) between 24/5/1674 and 01/06/1690.

His death on 19/01/1710 is recorded in the National Register for Carlow giving his residence as Kilconner but, unusually for the Register series, with no information regarding his family connections.¹⁰ However his approximate date of birth can be deduced from the following testimony given by his son Samuel, which also gives the place of burial:

I find myself engaged in duty to give this short testimony concerning my [End Page 2...