Watkin, Edward William, Sir, 1st Baronet, of Rose Hill (1819 -1901)

Sir Edward William Watkin, of Rose Hill, Northenden, in Cheshire, was the son of Absalom Watkin, and Elizabeth, daughter of William Makinson of Bolton in Lancashire. A merchant of Manchester, and Chairman of the South Eastern, Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincoln, and The Metropolitan Railways, he was elected Member of Parliament for Great Yarmouth 1857, but on petition the election was declared void; he was Member for Stockport 1864 1868; and for Hythe 1874 1895. He was knighted in 1868, and created a baronet 12 May 1880. He served as a Justice of the Peace for Lancashire, Cheshire, and Kent, a Deputy Lieutenant for Tower Hamlets, and a Knight of the Redeemer of Greece and of Leopold of Belgium. He married, firstly, 2 September 1845, Mary Briggs, daughter of Jonathan Mellor, of Hope House, Oldham in Lancashire. She died in 1888, and he married secondly, 6 April 1892, Ann, daughter of William Little, of the Manor House, Eye, Northamptonshire, and widow of Herbert Ingram M.P., founder of the Illustrated London News. A Catalogue of the library of Sir Edward W. Watkin, Bart, M.P., Rose Hill, Northenden was printed in 1889 by Henry Blacklock & Co., of Albert Square, Manchester, only a few copies being run off for private use. His only son, Sir Alfred Mellor Watkin, 2nd Baronet died in 1914 without issue.