(Updated, May 2014) Head-and-torso plaster bust, painted black/bronze, standing on its own flat base on a plywood baseboard, the sides ending at the points of the shoulders in rough-modelled vertical faces: the back is similar below the shoulders. It has an associated square wooden plinth in light oak. Watts is shown facing forward wearing a suit jacket with broad lapels, waistcoat, shirt with a high wing collar and tie. His hair is neatly combed and parted on his left and he has a heavy moustache. The plinth bears the inscription: ' SIR PHILIP WATTS / KCB FRS / DIRECTOR OF NAVAL CONSTRUCTION / 1902 -1912'.

Watts was born at Deptford, London, into a family of shipbuilders, had a highly professional early training and was an able and ingenious designer. From 1872 to 1885 he was on the Admiralty staff but for the next 17 years was chief constructor for Armstrong's at Elswick, building warships for foreign navies, though also some for Britain. Most of the Japanese battleships that fought so succesfully in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05 were of his design, including the pioneeringly fast 'Yashima', although she fell early victim to a Russian mine off Port Arthur. In 1902 he returned to the Admiralty as Director of Naval Construction and oversaw a revolutionary era of battleship and fast-cruiser building, his most famous ships being the 'Dreadnought' big-gun battleships launched from 1906. Lord Fisher, their progenitor, wrote: ‘The "Dreadnought" could not have been born but for Sir Philip Watts’ and he was also builder of the very successful battle-cruisers with which Britain fought the First World War. Though he resigned in 1912, Watts remained an Admiralty advisor until 1916, when he became a director of Armstrong's. He was elected FRS in 1900 and knighted in 1905. In retirement he was one of the key figures in the preservation and restoration of Nelson's 'Victory' at Portsmouth. The provenance of this bust is unclear and until February 2014 the plinth inscription suggested it might have been made for Watt's naval retirement, but on 27th of that month a bronze version was sold by Nicholas Mellors Auctions at Newark, Notts., (lot 273) and purchased by the National Museum of the Royal Navy at Portsmouth. That version is signed and dated John Angel, 1927 (making it posthumous) and bears a plaque on its wooden plinth noting Watts's distinctions including as 'Honorary Vice-President, 1916-26', though exactly of what, in its context, remains for confirmation.

Angel was a sculptor, medallist and lecturer, born the son of a tailor at Newton Abbot, Devon, in 1881. Having served a seven-year apprenticeship carving wood, stone and marble he studied at Exeter College of Art, then South London Technical School of Art (Lambeth) and finally at the Royal Academy Schools, London, from 1906. He won several prizes at the RA Schools, travelled in Italy during 1912 and for four years worked as an assistant to Sir George Frampton. His works from this date include the Exeter and Bridgwater War Memorials, and a statue of St George at Rotherham. In 1925 he emigrated to the USA where he had a lengthy and successful career principally as a sculptor of ecclesiastical carvings and sculptures. He married the daughter of a professor at Yale University and died at Fairfield, Connecticut, in 1960. His entry on the 'Mapping Sculpture' website says he did a number of statuettes and busts and suggests there may be a further version of this one in either Exeter or Glasgow, but is not specific.