Lives in Cricket No 39 - Alec Watson

11 Early Life discussions with the staff of the North Lanarkshire Local Studies Library, I had to abandon that view. While they accepted that such miscopying did indeed take place, they argued cogently that on this occasion the layout and content of the form made such a hypothesis untenable. Moreover, since this particular Watson family did not feature in the 1861 census for Coatbridge, when, as we shall see, there was every indication that ‘our’ Alec Watson was living in the town in that year, it now became necessary to turn attention to the other Watson family; which was immediately to produce another problem. This Alec was the son of Robert and Rebecca Watson of Merrystone Square, which was to the north-east of the present Langloan district, and on the north side of West Park. Then his eldest brother was George, aged eleven, sister Rebecca was eight, Alec was the expected age of six, Elizabeth three and John one. The father was shown as a ‘labourer’, as was the eleven-year- old George, while Rebecca and Alec were ‘at school’. What was surprising was that both parents and all the children, except the infant John, were shown as having been born in Ireland, John Merrystone Street today. Watson’s first home in Merrystone Square would have been about here. Job Freeth’s Carradale House would have been behind the photographer.