THOSE who go down to the sea in ships and do their business in great waters certainly see the works of the Lord. But they are a fairly ungodly bunch, more interested in the prospects for the next run ashore in a foreign port than their eternal souls.

The role of a Royal Navy chaplain is thus a challenging one. Although he does not wear badges of rank, he lives in the wardroom and must therefore overcome the them-and-us “officer” cachet and be able to sit with the lads on the messdeck without affectation and with dignity. Taking care not to get across the work of the professional welfare organisations, he is well placed to offer wise and confidential counsel to the worried or distressed, while not underplaying his prime duty towards the spiritual life of his flock.

Basil Alderson Watson was a naval chaplain for 25 years and combined to perfection all the needed qualities. He was a man of impressive physique and presence, and his cheerful countenance and clarity of message commanded universal affection and respect.

The son of a clergyman, he was educated at Worksop College and Selwyn College, Cambridge, where he read history and theology and was president of athletics, representing the college at athletics, rugby and hockey. He discovered that he had a vocation and went to theological college at Westcott House, his ordination at Ely being followed by a year at Holy Trinity, Cambridge, and four in a pit parish at Denton in Northumberland.

At that time the Royal Navy required its chaplains to have five years’ experience before recruitment, so it was not until 1944 that he joined the light fleet aircraft carrier Attacker. The carrier took part in the D-Day landings, the assault on the south of France and in operations against the Japanese in the East Indies. Watson developed his style as the ship’s news broadcaster and edited the ship’s newspaper, a role which, when chaplain of the large carrier Victorious in 1960-62, he reckoned used to take some four hours a day trawling the messdecks for gossip.

An example of Watson’s uncompromising Christianity occurred in Victorious when he persuaded the captain that attendance at Sunday morning service should be made compulsory for those not on duty. It was even then a very old-fashioned practice, but one which many found inspiring — one rating reporting: “We all feel we can come now it’s been made compulsory.”

Watson’s subsequent naval service included chaplaincies at the naval shore training establishments Collingwood and Vernon and the naval air station at Culdrose in Cornwall. He had a permanent influence upon several cohorts of young officers in the training cruiser Devonshire and at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, 1965-68, as well as two tours at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich. During the first of these, from 1952 to 1955, he was college chaplain and also, having the necessary scholarly attainment, an academic tutor with a number of subsequently very senior officers in his tutor-set, notably Admiral of the Fleet Sir Julian Oswald, First Sea Lord, and the commander of the Falklands task force, Admiral Sir John Woodward.

While chaplain to the First Submarine Squadron in Malta between 1955 and 1958, he became a trusted friend of the peppery and capricious Prime Minister, Dom Mintoff, because they both had children at the same Verdala school. Watson recalled that this was useful as a communications channel between Mintoff and the Governor, General Sir Robert Laycock, when official relationships were touchy. He was appointed OBE in 1965.

Watson left the naval service in 1970, to the astonishment of many who felt that he had the personality and energy to make an outstanding Chaplain of the Fleet.

He spent the next 16 years as the chaplain of the Corporation of the City of London. His version of how he was chosen for the coveted City of London post of St Lawrence Jewry is well known. There had been more than 100 replies to the advertisement and Watson was the last of eight on the shortlist to be interviewed. When asked why he had applied, Watson said: “If I may use my naval vernacular, sir, I would say because it seemed like money for old rope. I understand that a Guild church is not allowed to open on Sundays, that it is unlikely to have a Sunday School or a Mothers’ Union. What else could a naval chaplain want?” Despite misgivings about a misplaced sense of humour, he got the job.

Watson soon immersed himself in the life of the City of London. He was for a time its Rural Dean and was chaplain to several livery companies. His knowledge of City life and mores is nowhere better illustrated than in his book Airs and Graces, which he published in 1993 and which contained, often in amusing doggerel, some 250 graces appropriate to a variety of occasions and which alluded to practices such as takeovers and insider dealing.

Keen to broaden the evangelism of St Lawrence Jewry and attract more worshippers, he instituted “Wednesday Talks” and persuaded Enoch Powell to deliver the first three of these to the congregation in May 1971. Attendance increased sharply; the series ran for 15 years with well-known speakers including Margaret Thatcher, the Defence Secretary Sir John Nott, the chairman of the Stock Exchange and many other senior City figures and churchmen of other faiths.

Watson’s opinions were at variance with the general thrust of the Anglican Church of the day and he was antipathetic to the modernisation of the liturgy and many of the reforms then being instituted. When his choice of speakers at St Lawrence Jewry caused controversy, he refused a demand by Christian CND for a “right of reply”, describing them as a threat to national security. “I don’t believe in balance,” he said. “I believe in my own point of view.” Similarly, at the many weddings for which he officiated, he had little trouble with the word “obey” in the bridal promise; “There can only be one captain of a ship.”

These uncompromisingly conservative attitudes were complemented by Watson’s careful and kindly pastoral activities in his large and disparate parish, his upbringing as a naval padre leading him to treat all degrees of men and women alike. Sir Robin Gillett, a former Lord Mayor of London whom Watson served as chaplain, provides an appropriate epitaph; “A big man both physically and spiritually, a Christian who could look the Devil in the eye, and the Devil would back off”.

Watson is survived by his wife Jan, whom he met when she was a physiotherapist with the Airborne Division and married in 1945, and their son and daughter.

The Rev Basil Watson, OBE, naval chaplain and chaplain to the Corporation of the City of London 1970-86, was born on August 21, 1916. He died on October 27, 2004, aged 88.