Founded in 1888 and named after Colonel John Watson, the British Political Agent of the Kathiawar Agency, this is the older of Rajkot's central museums. It sits on the edge of Jubilee Garden in a yellow Indo-Saracenic building, the upper floor reached by a wide stone staircase. The collection covers the archaeology, natural history, coins, manuscripts and tribal craftwork of the Saurashtra region — including objects from the nearby Harappan site at Rojdi.
The displays are old-fashioned and labels are sometimes faded, but the building and its collection together amount to a small time capsule of late-Victorian curatorial taste. A statue of Queen Victoria, marble pillars, and a stuffed crocodile presented by the Maharao of Kutch are among the more memorable curiosities. Closed on Wednesdays and on the second and fourth Saturdays of each month.