Major (Dr.) James Watt, a retired officer and physician from the Canada and Bermuda Territory, has received the Order of the Founder, The Salvation Army’s highest honour. Renowned for his medical work at Howard Hospital in Zimbabwe, where he faithfully served the underprivileged and established critical health-care infrastructure, Major Watt was presented with the award by General Lyndon Buckingham in April in Calgary during the Jesus Our Compass cross-Canada tour of the General and Commissioner Bronwyn Buckingham, World President of Women’s Ministries.

Major Watt graduated from the University of British Columbia Medical School in 1967. Sensing the call of God on his life for full-time ministry as an officer, he spent one year in the Toronto College for Officer Training, together with his wife, Major Bette Watt, before they were commissioned in 1970 with the rank of captain. Their first appointment took them to Howard Hospital in the then Rhodesia Territory in south-central Africa. 

Serving during a period of civil war and political unrest, Major Watt’s responsibilities at Howard Hospital included medicine, pediatrics, obstetrics, psychiatry, infectious diseases, nurse’s training and community health.

“Due to the seven-year-long War of Independence, I was the only doctor there for half this time, starting mobile clinics on land-mined roads to serve the ‘protected villages’ (concentration camps),” he shared on the UBC Medical Alumni Association’s website when he received their Wallace Wilson Leadership Award in 2018. “We opposed torture and treated both sides in the conflict, resulting in threats of detention, expulsion and death.”

Major Watt was encouraged to leave the country as a safety precaution, but he refused and remained at the hospital to help those in need. Surviving several attempts on his life with the help of God, he worked with other missionary doctors to prepare Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) for the future of medical work after the civil war. Thanks to their efforts, a plan was put in place for rebuilding and restructuring, which gained government acceptance and was implemented on a national level.

The Watts returned to Canada where he served at Calgary Children’s Village and helped establish the Calgary Urban Projects Society/CUPS Clinic, an HIV-AIDS clinic in downtown Calgary. They were again appointed to Zimbabwe, first to support the work at Tshelanyemba Hospital and then again at Howard Hospital. Majors Watt retired in 2000 in Calgary, where they attend Berkshire Citadel Community Church.

The Order of the Founder was instituted by General Bramwell Booth in 1917 to mark “outstanding service rendered by officers and soldiers such as would in spirit or achievement have been specially commended by the Founder.”