Career
Alfred Watts, cashier for the South Australian Company, left England on the Hartley, arriving in South Australia in October 1837, listed on the ship"s manifest as Robert Adolphus Alfred Shaw Watts, but otherwise was only ever known as Alfred Watts. lieutenant was proposed by a group of London speculators, who offered to finance it totally in exchange for monopoly use of the facility. The plan was supported by the newspapers but opposed by Portuguese Adelaide business interests, and by the Legislative Council select committee which saw that it would be inimical to South Australia"s long-term interests.
They tendered for construction of lighthouses and jetties, beginning with the Cape Jaffa lighthouse, as agents for Wells Brothers, eminent British engineers, whose principal was a brother of Percy Wells.
He was elected to the South Australian House of Assembly seat of Flinders and sat from October 1855 to February 1857, November 1862 to September 1866 (when he resigned) and May 1868 to February 1875. He was appointed to several committees and commissions, where his financial expertise proved valuable, but with advancing years his intellect deteriorated and he no longer appeared in public.
He succeeded Herbert Aylwin as Consul for Sweden and Norway from about 1865 to 1875, succeeded by Edmund William Wright. Alfred Watts married Jane Isabella "Minnie" Giles (1824 – 19 August 1894), second daughter of William Giles, manager of the South Australian Company, on 18 May 1842.
They lived at "Leabrook", then "Hazelwood".
Jane was the author of several books They had no children.