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120 William Richard Watkins
120 William Richard Watkins
120 William Richard Watkins
photographer’s main job was to photograph the family of Edwin Watkins. Flip ahead and look
at that photograph and you will see Edwin and Jane Watkins and their four children and my
Great Grandfather William. Edwin, a head gardener [one assistant] to the affluent Spicer
sisters, was not well off. However the occasion was a special one. The Edwin Watkins family
Chapter 2 -- 2
would soon travel to Portland, Oregon in far away America. William would never see his
beloved son and grandchildren again nor they him. I’m sure that they all knew it and that it
tempered their anticipation of the great adventure with a note of sadness. William, then 78
years old, must have felt it most keenly of all. I wish I could tell you more of Ann (Waghorn)
Watkins or William’s other children but I cannot. We owe great thanks to Douglas MacBeth
Hood who learned much of the above from his mother and grandmother and passed it on to us..
Doug tells me that William had been a farmer at Brenchley, a village about five miles ENE of
Royal Tunbridge Wells, a spa town about 25 miles SE of London.