ABSTRACT
After switching to phrenology, Hewett Cottrell Watson would not have contemplated seeking a teaching position, because British universities never hired professors of phrenology. Although Watson was reluctant to leave England permanently under economically disadvantageous conditions, he was interested in going a shorter distance on better terms. When the new colleges finally hired professors of natural history in 1849, Watson wrote the announcement for The Phytologist. He used the occasion to inform fellow botanists that he had withdrawn, and had not been passed over. By then there were three new Queen's Colleges in Ireland instead of two, and Watson wrote enthusiastically about the appointment of George Dickie at Belfast. The papers which he has already published on botanical subjects, being such as to place him in an elevated and honorable position among scientific naturalists; and giving promise, they trust, of such valuable exertion yet to be made by him for the promotion of science.
