Watkin apprenticed as a printer under his uncle John Gardiner Fuller, an abolitionist and son of Andrew Fuller (co-founder of the Baptist Missionary Society), in Bristol. Family letters indicate that in 1845 after staying for a period with another uncle, Reverend Andrew Gunton Fuller, in London, he traveled to America. By 1847 Watkin had made his way to Cincinnati where he worked for the Cincinnati newspaper, the "Daily Gazette", a known organ for the land reform movement at the time. Within a few years, Watkin became foreman of the Gazette but left in 1853 to set up his own bookstore and printing shop.