Constituency : Caithness 1885-1900
Gavin won Caithness as an Independent Liberal sponsored by the Highland Land League, an organisation supporting the rights of crofters in the far north of Scotland. He was one of five successful candidates in 1885 who formed the Crofters Party in Parliament but were generally supportive of ( and eventually absorbed by ) the Liberals. Gavin beat the official Liberal who was the son of the retiring MP John Sinclair.
Gavin was a doctor educated at Edinburgh University and King's College London.
Gavin was actually an enthusiastic supporter of Gladstone and was the official Liberal candidate in 1886, 1892 and 1895. In 1888 he was a founding Vice-president of the Scottish Labour Party. He was an early advocate of Scottish devolution , frustrated by the slow passage of private legislation affecting Scotland.
Gavin was honorary secretary of the Transvaal Independence Committee and wrote the pamphlet The Transvaal and Bechuanaland. He denounced the annexation of Burma as "a kind of freebooting expedition".
Gavin joined Lloyd George's dubious gold mining venture.
By 1900 Gavin had fallen out of favour with the local party over his pro-Boer views and came a poor third in the 1900 election. He stood for Labour in 1918 in Glasgow Cathcart.
He died in 1930 aged 84.
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