Alfred Mellor Watkin; MP for Great Grimsby 1877-1880.

An illustration for The Illustrated London News, 25th August 1877. The accompanying piece reads: THE NEW MEMBER FOR GRIMSBY. The recent election to the borough of Great Grimsby, as was lately announced, has given a seat in the House of Commons to Mr. Alfred Mellor Watkin, son of Sir Edward Watkin, M.P. for Hythe, the chairman of South-Eastern, Metropolitan, and Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire Railway Companies. Mr. Alfred Watkin is thirty or thirty-one years of age. He has devoted himself to practical engineering, and has achieved some reputation in that department. He is the author of several treatises on some details of mechanical science applied to the working of railways. He is married to a daughter of the Very Rev. Dr. Payne Smith, Dean of Canterbury. Though he has not yet taken any active part in political public life, he enters Parliament as a supporter of the Liberal Party, under the leadership of Lord Hartington.

The portrait is from a photograph by Mr. F. E. Friston, of Grimsby.

Alfred Watkin was in office from 3rd August 1877 until 1880. He did not attempt to retain the seat at the next election. He was preceded by John Chapman and succeeded by Edward Heneage. He became the 2nd Baronet of Rose Hill upon his father’s death in 1901. The title became extinct upon his own death in 1914.