Wat was born in 1785. The missionaries later reported that his life before meeting them had been "improvident", having abandoned his wife and child "entirely" and wandering without any regular employment. He apparently visited England "several times" before 1816. Wylie records that he was "connected with the London Mission as a printer, almost from its first establishment", but he passes unmentioned in Robert Morrison's journals of his early years in Macao and Guangzhou (then romanized as "Canton"). Morrison, the first Protestant missionary in the Qing Empire, undertook translation and adaption of the 1714 Kangxi Dictionary alongside his translation of the Bible into Chinese. Through his comprador Yong Sam-tak, he either hired trained printers or trained his hired servants to cut the wooden type and operate the presses needed. He also asked his employees to attend Sunday services and daily meetings at his home.