Watt's family was wealthy, and he was able to establish himself as a grazier by purchasing several cattle stations in New South Wales and Queensland. Travelling abroad again, he obtained his Master of Arts degree from Cambridge in 1904. In October the following year he was promoted to captain in the Scottish Rifles. On a subsequent trip to England he took flying lessons at the Bristol aviation school on Salisbury Plain, where his fellow students included Eric Harrison. Watt attained his Royal Aero Club certificate, no. 112, on 1 August 1911, becoming the first Australian citizen so qualified. Upon his return to Australia later that year, he publicly declared that the time was "rapidly approaching when an aero corps have to be inaugurated" as part of the country's "military defence scheme".