Watson was one of the founders of the Durham College of Physical Science, and President of Armstrong College.

Joseph Watson, father of Robert Spence Watson. A solicitor of literary ambition, Joseph Watson served as the northern secretary of the Anti-Corn Law League and was a Quaker.

Ahren Warner was born in 1986 and grew up in Lincolnshire. He lived in Paris whilst writing his doctorate and now lives in London. His first collection, Confer (Bloodaxe Books, 2011), was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and was shortlisted for both the Forward Prize for Best First Collection and the Michael Murphy Memorial Prize 2013. He was awarded an Eric Gregory Award in 2010 and an Arts Foundation Fellowship in 2012. His second collection, Pretty (Bloodaxe Books, 2013) is another Poetry Book Society Recommendation. He is poetry editor of Poetry London.

Sarah Wardle was born in London in 1969. She was educated at Cheltenham Ladies’ College; Oxford, where she read Classics; and Sussex, where she read English. She won Poetry Review’s new poet of the year award in 1999 and her first collection, Fields Away (Bloodaxe Books, 2003), was shortlisted for the Forward best first collection prize. Her second book, SCORE! (Bloodaxe Books, 2005), included some of the poems she broadcast while poet-in-residence for Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, as well as the script of a film-poem, ‘X: A Poetry Political Broadcast’. A Knowable World (Bloodaxe Books, 2009) followed her detainment in a Central London psychiatric hospital, and a new collection, Beyond, is due from Bloodaxe in 2014. She is a lecturer in poetry at Middlesex University and Morley College, and a FRSA.