J. W. W. Watts

In February 1894 the curator of the National Art Gallery in Ottawa, J. W. W. Watts, wrote the note that records how Falkland Warren's Cypriot antiquities were received in Canada. Warren had written to the Canadian Minister of Public Works on 6 February 1894 about his collection from a temple of Apollo near Tamassos, asking that it be left unaltered unless a competent restorer were paid. On 17 February Watts minuted that the antiquities had been carefully unpacked and the damage repaired, and that he would consult Warren if any doubt arose¹.

The curator's name is printed differently in the two accounts that mention him. H.-G. Buchholz's 2001 chapter gives J. W. W. Watts, while his 1991 article on Tamassos-Phrangissa names the signer of the Public Works report as John W. H. Watts, Curator of the National Gallery^1,2. The office and the period are the same. That report, dated 22 April 1895 (Appendix 6), is signed by the curator and says the coins, pottery and antiquities presented by Colonel Warren had mostly been placed in suitable cases².

Warren wrote again from Vancouver on 28 December 1895. A ministry clerk first filed the letter as meant for the Geological Museum, and it then reached Watts, who commented on it. Warren proposed to come to Ottawa in the summer of 1896 to determine the pieces from photographs and help restore them, and said he would deposit further collections¹. Nothing is recorded of Watts after this exchange. In 1958 the Warren material went from Ottawa to Toronto and was registered at the Royal Ontario Museum as 958.61; the coins are missing².