Charles H. Watson (8 October 1877 – 24 December 1962)Ochs, Daniel A. and Ochs, Grace Lillian. ''The Past and the Presidents'', Southern Publishing Association, Nashville, Tennessee, 1974. SBN: 8127-0084-8 was a

Seventh-day Adventist The Seventh-day Adventist Church (SDA) is an Adventist Protestant Christian denomination which is distinguished by its observance of Saturday, the seventh day of the week in the Christian (Gregorian) and the Hebrew calendar, as the Sabbat ...

minister and administrator. He was President of the General Conference from 1930 to 1936. Watson was born in Australia on 8 October 1877 to a farming family who lived near

Yambuk, Victoria Yambuk is a town in Victoria, Australia. The Yambuk township was established in the 1850s, and the Post Office opened on 1 March 1859. Yambuk is sited where the Princes Highway crosses the Shaw River. At the , the town and surrounding area had ...

. On 23 March 1898 he married his neighbor and childhood sweetheart, Elizabeth Mary Shanks. In 1900 his family was introduced to Seventh-day Adventist doctrines. Charles resisted accepting these doctrines until 1902, when he found no biblical support for Sunday observance and was baptized by W. A. Hennig. Watson had been a successful wool buyer, but quit the business in 1907 to attend Australasian Missionary College in order to study for the ministry. He graduated from this school in 1909 and was ordained into Seventh-day Adventist ministry on 14 September 1912. Watson was appointed president of the Queensland Conference. He was succeeded in this position in 1914 by Edwin Butz. His business sense and aptitude for remembering names and faces had gained him a reputation for administrative skill, and in 1915 he was elected president of the Australasian Union Conference. During this time he preached in Australia,

Fiji Fiji, officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists of an archipelago of more than 330 islands—of which about ...

Tahiti Tahiti (; Tahitian language, Tahitian , ; ) is the largest island of the Windward Islands (Society Islands), Windward group of the Society Islands in French Polynesia, an overseas collectivity of France. It is located in the central part of t ...

, and the United States of America. From 1922 until 1926 he served as vice-president and associate treasurer of the General Conference of Seventh-Day Adventists. He returned to North America in 1930 to attend the General Conference Session, where he was elected President of the General Conference, in no small part due to his financial ability. He directed the Adventist church during a time of budget-cutting and consolidation, while accomplishing a period of denominational growth. When his term ended in 1936, he returned to Queensland, Australia, where he assumed the duties of vice-president of the Australasian Division and president of the Australasian Union Conference. He retired in 1944. He died on 24 December 1962 at Sydney Sanitarium and Hospital, and was buried in Northern Suburbs Cemetery in

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

, Australia.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Watson, Charles H. 1877 births 1962 deaths Seventh-day Adventist administrators Australian Seventh-day Adventists 20th-century Australian Christian clergy Seventh-day Adventist religious workers Seventh-day Adventist ministers History of the Seventh-day Adventist Church

See also

References