Born in England ,the daughter of a well known medical man,Watson was educated mainly on the Continent, France in particular.
Her family was connected to the British Army , a brother, Colonel Watson, of the Army Medical Corps, visited Queensland at the end of World War l , after serving for years in India.
Her first literary success was Litanies of Life, published in London.
Soon after , arriving in Australia from Wales, she married William Dearden ,deeply involved in the Australian timber industry ,travelled with him on the North African coast , the scene for a novel, The Gaiety of Fatma.
Watson spent 15 years in Brisbane where she was a well known , vivacious identity, said to be a cheery, cultured and charitable woman with a wide view of the world and its problems, and intensely sympathetic.
.She entertained and travelled in Queensland with the French one- armed General Paul Pau when he toured Australia and New Zealand between September 1918 and January 1919 on a post-war diplomatic visit.
A newspaper account said that when General Pau, who had served in the Franco-Prussian War, where he lost his lower right arm , was in Queensland his happiest hours were with the country people, with Mrs Dearden (Watson) as guide, mentor, and friend, and interpreter also, for she spoke French as a Parisian.
Much of her nature , it continued, had the French vivacity and general temperament, and that was not surprising since, as a little child, she had shared the privations of the siege of Paris and heard the German guns thundering on the wider environs.
It is interesting to note that when General Pau was in New Zealand a kauri tree , Agathis australis , was named after him in his honor .
For the Brisbane Courier Mail , Watson wrote a series of short stories under the title Heniette Says, later made into a small book. These were the sayings of a French girl married to an Australian Digger soldier living a new life with him down under.
It was said the brave philosphy and great literary charm of these stories made them very popular . They had all the brightness of the heart of a French woman happily and devotedly linked up with Australia.
They were a blend of humour, bright appreciation of and bravery in new and rough surroundings, and with just a little wistfulness in the reflections upon Henriette’s native land.
A Watson play, If Youth But Knew, set in a London morning room , was performed in Melbourne , along with other plays by prominent playwrights of the day, including Louis Esson . In these illustrations from the program Esson is quoted as saying he hoped a playright like the famous Elizabethan playwright and poet Christopher Marlowe would emerge in Melbourne .
William Moore, journalist, art critic and playwright, promoted Australian art and drama, was involved in annual drama nights in Melbourne from 1909-l912.
Esther Paterson studied at the Melbourne National Gallery School, was a Fellow of th Royal Society of Arts,London, a member of the Melbourne Society of Women Painters and Sculptors and a council member of the Victorian Artists' Society .
The James Cook University library in Townsville has a Watson volume.
( Watson. France . Author.)
