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In 1886 Watson founded the
Aeolian Ladies’ Orchestra, said to have been the first all-female orchestra in the UK. In her years on the concert circuit she had already worked with many of the leading female musicians of the day, including violinist Kitty Althaus, oboist Leila Bull, the Chaplin sisters
115:(Nellie, Kate and Mabel), Clara Farrow (horn), Catherine Fidler (trumpet), Anna Lang (violin), Constance Moss (trombone), the Mukle sisters (Lilian, Anne and May), Lucy Mumby (bassoon), flautists Anita Paggi and Edith Penville, Beatrice Pettit (cornet) and clarinetist Frances Thomas.
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at the Open Air
Theatre. Watson died in London on 5 October 1959 at the age of 94. Her papers, including original manuscripts, are held at the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin, among the papers of the actor Chris Castor and her husband Donald Wolfit.
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After graduating Watson was active as a soloist and chamber music musician from the early 1880s. She taught music in schools and composing and conducting theatre music. She performed in and arranged concerts at venues including the
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as "a first-rate all-round musician and a most capable conductor. She is the best woman horn-player in
England, and plays the piano and all the stringed instruments extremely well, especially the double bass".
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The orchestra, which flourished in the 1890s and still performed occasionally over the following two decades, employed many of these and other female students and scholars who had trained at the
169:. She selected, arranged and sometimes composed the incidental music as well as conducting, though the extent of her contribution is not always clear. For the 1925 production of
22:(September 1865 – 5 October 1959) was an English conductor, theatre music director and all-round musician. She was the founder of the first all-female orchestra in the UK.
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Watson continued to work regularly into her old age. One of the last theatre music performances she is credited with was a July 1956 production of
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63:. With her friend the pianist Anne Mukle she worked on philanthropic music and drama productions in one of the poorest areas of London,
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and
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Watson became an authority on incidental music for the theatre, mostly, but not exclusively
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In 1911 she was appointed director of music at the
Institute School of Music in
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Florence Fidler and
Rosabel Watson. ‘Music as a Profession for Women’, in
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in the late 1870s. In 1880 she began her professional training at the
360:'Soundtrack to Shakespeare: uncovering the RSC's forgotten treasures'
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Chris Castor. An
Inventory of Her Papers at the Harry Ransom Center
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as a music director, from 1916 up until around 1944, often with
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The
Aeolian Ladies' Orchestra with Rosabel Watson (centre), 1912
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was president of the school and lectures were given there by
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Watson became interested in music by regularly attending the
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No. 19 (1899), pp. 132–133, reprinted in: Rosemary
Golding.
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The Women's
Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide 1866-1928
411:. The music played under the direction of Rosabel Watson"
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British conductor and theatre music director (1865–1959)
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as Titania. She also conducted elsewhere, such as the
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Other women only orchestras of this era included the
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