David Watkins (5 May 1865 – 8 April 1935) was an Australian politician. He was an Australian Labor Party member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly for Wallsend from 1894 until 1901. At Federation, he was elected to the new Australian House of Representatives as the Labor member for Newcastle and served until his death in 1935. Watkins' death left former Prime Minister Billy Hughes as the only remaining member of the First Parliament still in the House.
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Early life and career
Watkins was born in Wallsend, New South Wales, the third son of Welsh immigrants John Watkins, a miner, and his wife Mary Ann, née Hopkins. He was educated at Wallsend Public School, but left school at thirteen. He worked in the Wallsend office of the Newcastle Morning Herald for two years, then worked for W. J. Johnson getting timber for the Wallsend Colliery. He went to work for the Wallsend Colliery directly in 1882, first as a water baler and wheeler, and then from 1884 as a miner. He was secretary of the Wallsend Lodge of the Miners' Union in from 1891 until his election to state parliament. As Wallsend secretary, Watkins, along with the union's general secretary, conducted and won an influential case about pay rates for certain types of coal seams (known as the "jerry case") that resulted in Wallsend workers receiving three years' backpay. Watkins was a member of the committee of management of the Wallsend Mining District Hospital and was heavily involved with the Wallsend and Plattsburg Musical and Literary Society and Wallsend Choral Society.