Researching David Watkins

Watkins was educated at South Central and Merrywood Grammar Schools, Bristol, and Bristol College of Technology. He was an engineering inspector and president of his branch of the Amalgamated Engineering Union. He served as a councillor on Bristol City Council 1954-57 and on the Bristol Education Committee from 1958.

Watkins contested Bristol North West in 1964. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Consett from 1966 to 1983, when the seat was abolished in boundary changes.

Watkins was director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding from 1983 to 1990. His books on the Palestine-Israel conflict include Palestine: an inescapable duty and The Exceptional Conflict.

He died on 23 August 2013 at the age of 87 from complications of a stroke suffered in December 2012.

Watkins was born in Wallsend, New South Wales, the son of long-serving federal Newcastle MP David Watkins, and was educated at Cook's Hill Public School. He worked as a woolclasser until 1915, when he enlisted for service in World War I. He embarked in February 1916 and served with the 1st Mounted Wireless Signals in Mesopotamia, but he became seriously ill with malaria later that year and returned to Australia in February 1917. He was later reported to have worked in the steel industry, and he was working as a storeman at the time of his election to parliament.

Watkins was elected to the House of Representatives at a 1935 by-election for the seat of Newcastle following the death of his father. He defeated Lang Labor candidate and former state MP James Smith by over 2,000 votes. In parliament, Watkins served on a series of committees as a member of the Printing Committee from 1937 to 1940, the House Committee from 1940 to 1951, the Prices and Profits Committee in 1941, deputy chairman of the Australian Soldiers Repatriation Act Committee from 1942 to 1943, deputy chairman of the Broadcasting Committee from 1943 to 1949, and a member of the Public Works Committee from 1950 to 1954. He was also temporary chairman of committees from 1940 to 1954.

In 1940, at the age of 44, Watkins enlisted for service in World War II with the Royal Australian Air Force, seeking to be engaged in administrative work at home or overseas. In 1943, he led an Australian delegation to Great Britain and Canada at the invitation of the Empire Parliamentary Association. He held the seat until his retirement due to ill health in 1958 following several months of sick leave.

Watkins purchased a home in Surfers Paradise, Queensland in July 1956 and retired there after his retirement from parliament in 1958. He died in 1971.

Watkins made his first-class appearances for Essex against Northamptonshire. He appeared infrequently for Essex, making eleven further first-class appearances, the last of which came against Kent in the 1954 County Championship, In his twelve first-class matches, he scored 210 runs at an average of 16.15, with a high score of 32. With the ball, he took 8 wickets at a bowling average of 52.62, with best figures of 2/45. He left Essex at the end of the 1955 season.