Sir Edward William Watkin, 1st Baronet (26 September 1819 – 13 April 1901) was a British Member of Parliament and railway entrepreneur.

His grand vision was a transcontinental railway lying largely within Canada, but owing to the sparse population west of Lake Superior, the scheme could not be profitable in the absence of government financial backing.

These included the Cheshire Lines Committee, the East London, the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire, the Manchester, South Junction & Altrincham, the Metropolitan, the Oldham, Ashton & Guide Bridge, the Sheffield & Midland Joint, the South Eastern, the Wigan Junction and the New York, Lake Erie and Western railways.

He was instrumental in the creation of the MS&LR's 'London Extension', Sheffield to Marylebone, the Great Central Main Line, opened in 1899.

[1] For Watkin, opening an independent route to London was crucial for the long-term survival and development of the MS&LR, but it was also one part of a grander scheme: a line from Manchester to Paris.

Watkin's ambitious plan was to develop a railway route which could carry passenger trains directly from Liverpool and Manchester to Paris, crossing from Britain to France via a tunnel under the English Channel.

The project was highly controversial and fears grew of the tunnel being used as a route for a possible French invasion of Great Britain; notable opponents of the project were the War Office Scientific Committee, Lord Wolseley and Prince George, Duke of Cambridge;[10] Queen Victoria reportedly found the tunnel scheme "objectionable".

Watkin was skilled at public relations and attempted to garner political support for his project, inviting such high-profile guests as the Prince and Princess of Wales, Liberal Party Leader William Gladstone and the Archbishop of Canterbury to submarine champagne receptions in the tunnel.

[11] In spite of his attempts at winning support, his tunnel project was blocked by parliament, then cancelled in the interests of national security.

The original entrance to Watkin's tunnel works remains in the cliff face but is now closed for safety reasons.

The 1,200-foot (370 m) tower was to be the centrepiece of a large public amusement park which he opened in May 1894 to attract London passengers onto his Metropolitan Railway.

Watkin's vision of Wembley Park as a day-out destination for Londoners had far-reaching consequences, shaping the history and use of the area to the present day.

In 1902 the Tower, now known as ‘Watkin's Folly’, was declared unsafe (though this was because of concerns about the safety of the lifts, rather than directly about the subsidence) and closed to the public.

In 1904 it was decided to demolish the structure, a process that ended with the foundations being destroyed by explosives in 1907, leaving four large holes in the ground.

[1] Their son, Alfred Mellor Watkin, became locomotive superintendent of the South Eastern Railway in 1876[24] and Member of Parliament for the Great Grimsby constituency in 1877.

[26] Edward Watkin died on 13 April 1901 and was buried in the family grave in the churchyard of St Wilfrid's, Northenden, where a memorial plaque commemorates his life.