Author: Watkins, William
Biography:
WATKINS, William (1755-1811: ancestry.co.uk)
He was baptised on 14 January 1756 (but probably born the previous year) at Whitby, Yorkshire, the son of Richard Watkins (1726-1811) and his wife Jane Clarke (1730-1774), who had married in 1753. He was educated locally and then went to sea for a number of years but retired early and became a schoolmaster in Whitby in 1794. He acquired a knowledge of Latin and Greek, French, and Portuguese, and knew some Norse and Spanish. He published two periodicals, The Whitby Spy (1784), consisting of thirty essays, and Anomaliae(1798) with a further thirty-four numbers of miscellaneous essays and poetry. He edited the Poetical Remains (1807), with a memoir, of his lifelong friend Francis Gibson (q.v.). Apart from the works listed here, Samuel Smales in Whitby Authors (1867) also lists two works which have not been located: The Sailor, An Epistle to a Friend Going Abroad (1784) and The Apology; Or, An Excuse for not Writing, in Four Familiar Epistles. Both works were printed by Caleb Webster on the Crag at Whitby with whom he published earlier and later works so there is no reason to doubt their existence. There is a bound manuscript volume of Watkins’ works at Whitby Museum but they are not in that either. This may be the volume referred to be Smales as “consisting of two unfinished plays, various detached pieces of poetry, and several translations from Sanazarius, a Latin poet, whose writings he greatly admired” (37). He died on 4 Jan. 1811 at Whitby; his father died the following day. There is a family monumental tomb at St. Mary the Virgin, Whitby. He never married. (ancestry.co.uk 2 Dec. 2022; findmypast.co.uk 2 Dec. 2022; Whitby Authors 35-8; Cumberland Pacquet 15 Jan. 1811; Whitby Museum) AA