Alban Watkins, squire of Llannerch, plays a short but violent part in the story of Martha Morgan and the Plas. He appears early on, as one of a triumvirate of minor gentry (the others are Benjamin Rice and George Howell) who have designs on the Plas Ingli estate. Why? Well, like many of the other small gentry families in West Wales, they have limited amounts of land of modest fertility, houses that are grander than they should be, and large debts. They have vast pretensions, and their ambitions are centred on good marriages for their children and the expansion of their estates -- with the objective of making their estates "safe" before they default on loans or before they get gobbled up by the bigger fish in the pond. Watkins's estate on the floor of the Gwaun Valley has some water meadows and extensive woodlands but very few dry and fertile fields -- so he lives financially right on the edge. The Plas Ingli estate borders his -- and it has wider horizons, south-facing fields, and land which is sloping and well drained. Very desirable.
At the beginning of the story is he just over 40 years old, with a wife and two daughters -- and he needs dowries for them if they are to "marry up" and find wealthy husbands. He starts off being a drinking friend of the sinister Moses Lloyd, but behind the scenes Moses is becoming more and more indebted since Watkins buys his drinks for him -- and before long Moses has to share his secret about the Plas Ingli treasure with him, with a promise of a share in the spoils when it is dug up. This then becomes another motivation for Watkins, who is quite happy to see David and Martha and their family (and their new home) destroyed so that the treasure can be recovered. The problem is that Moses never does tell Watkins exactly where it is buried.........
Watkins is a big, overbearing, arrogant brute of a man, completely lacking in "sensibility." Martha has her first clash with him when the three squires and their wives invite themselves to afternoon tea at the Plas. They seek to intimidate her and demean her, and this gets her hackles up; and she manages to make them look small and very silly when discussions turn to the treatment of labourers, wages, land management, and even the circulating schools. From this moment on, Martha is Enemy Number One, since she is clearly seen as somebody intent upon the destruction of the old order....... Enemy Number Two is Grandpa Isaac, with whom Watkins has a dispute about the administration of justice (they are both magistrates).
Alban Watkins is the man behind the fraudulent claim on the Plas Ingli estate which causes David, Grandpa Isaac and Bowen of Llwyngwair to go rushing off to London to fight the case in the Chancery Court. The case is thrown out, and Watkins is arrested and later convicted for fraud and other misdemeanours, and shipped off to the penal colonies in Australia. All of his debts are called in, and the Llannerch estate collapses. His wife and daughters flee to Scotland.
In House of Angels Martha is terrified when Watkins reappears, having obtained a free pardon in Australia for services to the crown. (What those services were is a matter for speculation -- but suffice to say that his actions were so depraved and so brutal down under that a price was placed on his head by assorted Irish convicts -- leading to him having his throat slit down on the Nevern Estuary by an assassin.)
All in all, Watkins is not a very nice fellow -- but as he explains at the end of his life in a letter to his daughter Rose, all of his actions were driven by the determination (at all costs) to keep his estate alive, and to provide for his daughters. So he is indeed a villain, but a tragic figure as well.
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