WATKINS, WILLIAM (fl. 1750-1762), a cleric in Breconshire and author
of the first published book on trees of Wales. He is on record as a pensioner at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, from June 1750 to 1754, but he regularly signed the registers of Hay as a curate assisting an absent vicar during 1750-52. He left Hay soon after his wife and daughter died there of smallpox in 1752, and published A Treatise on Forest-Trees (London, 1753), which is now a very rare book. In 1762 he was appointed vicar of Llaneleu, but no more is known about him.
Bibliography:
- Jnl. W.B.S., 11 (1975-76), 247-50.
Author:
William Linnard, Llandaf
