Lives in Cricket No 39 - Alec Watson

8 Chapter One Early Life Most sources are agreed that Alexander Watson was born on 4 November, 1844, and that his birth took place in Coatbridge, Lanarkshire, Scotland. However, in Scores and Biographies Volume XII Arthur Haygarth gives his birth date as 1846, and mentions that some sources give his birthplace as Glasgow. However, in his obituary to Watson in the Coatbridge Leader his friend John Thompson gives the birth date as 1844 and the place as Langloan, Coatbridge, Watson having died ‘in his 76 th year, full of honours and renown’. Coatbridge lies barely ten miles to the east of Glasgow; it is situated in the parish of Old Monkland, while New Monkland now contains Airdrie. The Monklands, as the name suggests, had been agricultural land cultivated by monks. However, the discovery of coal reserves there and, to a lesser extent, of iron led to the area becoming a hotbed of industry in the first half of the nineteenth century, with coal mining, iron smelting, engineering, etc. The town of Coatbridge grew up to serve these industries and, as we shall see, workers flocked there from all parts of the United Kingdom. As in all such towns living conditions were cramped, working conditions were unpleasant and often downright dangerous, and life expectancy would be low. However, there were substantial open spaces, such as Yeomanry Park, where leisure pursuits and sport could be followed, though work commitments would limit the opportunities for those. Nowadays, apart from opencast operations, coal-mining has effectively disappeared from the area, and the iron industry is now concerned with lighter or more specialised products. Other light industries have grown up, but many of the present population of Coatbridge of about 45,000 work outside the town; its maximum population was about 55,000, though in Watson’s time there it was about 30,000. It has to be said, however, that no notice of Watson’s birth or christening can be found in the local Coatbridge records; compulsory registration only began in Scotland in 1855, and rather later in Ireland; of which connection rather more anon. It is