Mark Watson (archaeologist)

He was the fourth and youngest son of Joseph Watson, 1st Baron Manton (1873–1922), a wealthy English industrialist from Leeds in Yorkshire. ==Career==

He attended Eton College and later served as attaché at the British Embassy in Washington DC (1930–2) and in Paris (1932–4). During WW II he served as a Flight Lieutenant in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve and in Austria worked for the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program established in 1943 to help protect cultural property in war areas. Work in Iceland Early in his life he developed a passion for Iceland, and first visited that island in 1937, when he organised an expedition with packhorses to remote areas, and returned the next year for more exploration. Restoration of Glaumbaer , a traditional turf farmhouse in Skagafjordur, then together with many others in danger of disintegration due to neglect, and in 1938 was made an honorary member of the Icelandic Archeological Society. Dog breeder His work, The Icelandic Dog 874 – 1956: A Research on the Iceland Dog (also Known as the Icelandic Sheepdog) (Nicasio, 1956), is the most comprehensive research on the Icelandic Sheepdog ever made. He created a breeding program in Iceland and established Wensom Kennels at his ranch at Nicasio, California, having selected and imported ten pure types which he found on isolated farms situated in the most remote valleys and fjords. He is credited with having saved the breed from extinction by mixture with other imported breeds, mainly collies, Donation of artworks He donated a valuable library (1,310 works) to the Icelandic National Library, and to The National Museum of Iceland he donated more than 100 watercolour paintings by William Gershom Collingwood, an English painter who travelled in Iceland at the end of the 19th century. ==Assessment==

Iceland designated an official annual holiday in Mark's honor for his lifelong love of and generosity toward Iceland. He was described as "one of the most generous friends of Iceland who has presented to Icelanders more items of cultural value than any other foreign citizen", and: "I have never met a man of foreign origin that loved Iceland, both the land and the people as faithfully as he did" (Anna S. Snorradóttir, Mark Watson and Glaumbaer). His birthday, the 18th of July, is known as the "Day of the Icelandic Sheep Dog". ==Death==

He died in March 1979 at his home in Eaton Place, London, unmarried. ==References==