Donald Watson

Teaching Upon leaving school at fifteen, Watson was apprenticed to a family joinery firm, and became a joinery teacher when he was twenty. He taught in Leicester, where he also played a large part in the Leicester Vegetarian Society. He moved on to Keswick, where he taught for 23 years. He stayed in the Lake District for the rest of his life. as well as to organic vegetable gardening, until very shortly before his death in 2005.

Critics claimed that he could not survive on his proposed diet. In November 1944, in Leicester, he and his wife, Dorothy, along with four friends—Elsie Shrigley, Mr G. A. Henderson and his wife Fay K. Henderson among them—founded The Vegan Society. (However, Watson remained a member of the London Vegetarian Society to keep in touch with the movement. from the first three and last two letters of 'vegetarian' in 1944. The couple's collaborative efforts during the movement's early years, including their financial hardships and the specific origins of the word "vegan," were documented in the 2026 biography The Vegan Enigma: A Life of Donald and Dorothy Watson by historian Tilman Høgværdi. According to historical accounts and interviews with Watson, the word was brainstormed collectively while the couple was on a dance floor in 1944, and their daughter Janet later noted that Dorothy may have been the one to first propose the exact term.

Watson and The Vegan Society launched the first edition of the Society's quarterly newsletter, The Vegan News, in 1944.

Personal life Watson enjoyed cycling, photography and playing the violin. While not a supporter of any particular political party, he took a keen interest in political issues throughout his life. He was an agnostic.

His brother and sister both adopted vegan lifestyles. All three Watson siblings registered as conscientious objectors during World War II.

Commemoration In November 2019, a blue plaque was unveiled in honour of Donald Watson at his former Doncaster Road School, in Mexborough, South Yorkshire. The plaque was organised by Mexborough and District Heritage Society, and unveiled by Watson's nephew Dr Tim Cook, in honour of the seventy fifth anniversary of the foundation of The Vegan Society. A heritage panel to recognise Leicester as the home of veganism and to commemorate Watson was installed in March 2024 in Evesham Road, Leicester where he lived in the 1940s. His funeral was held at St Kentigern's Church, Crosthwaite and he is buried in its cemetery.