Neville Watterson

Walter Watterson was born in Wolverhampton in 1919.^[1] He married Betty Taylor in Newmarket, Cambridgeshire, in 1949.^[2] They had a daughter Claire.^[3]

Watterson worked as a civil engineer in Sarawak in the 1950s, kindling a lifelong interest in the country that was expressed through his philatelic collection.^[4]

Watterson wrote a two volume history of the mails of the Japanese prisoner of war camps of Borneo during the Second World War, the first volume published in 1989 generating such a response from philatelists and former POWs that a second volume was produced in 1994. His collection of Sarawak was sold by Cavendish Philatelic Auctions in London in September 2017.^[5]

He was a stalwart of the Northamptonshire Philatelic Society, the East Midlands Federation of Stamp Clubs, the Sarawak Specialists' Society and the Postal History Society.^[3][6] He and Betty were both fellows of the Royal Philatelic Society London.

Watterson died in Northampton General Hospital on 18 February 2017. He was pre-deceased by Betty.^[3]

• Sarawak: The issues of 1871 and 1875: Plating studies and postal history. 1989.
• Borneo: The Japanese P.O.W. Camps - Mail of the Forces, P.O.W. and Internees. 1989. ISBN 978-0951495100
• Borneo: Pt. 2: Japanese P.O.W. Camps - Mail of the Forces, P.O.W. and Internees. 1994. ISBN 978-0951495131
• Sarawak Officials: A Survey. 1996. ISBN 978-0951495148
• Sarawak: The De La Rue Story. Brock Publications, 2000. ISBN 978-0951495155
• Sarawak & Brunei: The De La Rue ink colours. 2004.
• Labuan: The beginnings, & 'the Crowns'. Brock Publications, 2008. (With Betty Watterson & Leslie Brueckheimer)

• Postage stamps and postal history of Malaysia