Agnes Maude Watson

Agnes Maude (or Maud) Watson (1880-?)

This was an eventful time for Watson, as he had not only begun to attract the attention of the Scottish selectors, but the Parkgrove club had collapsed. Twelve days after Agnes’s birth, he would try out but fail to break into the National Team, and two months after her birth, he would become a Queen’s Park player.

In the 1881 census, Agnes Maud does not appear in the Watson household, and even though she is only one year old, is recorded in a house on Great Wellington Street, with her grandparents, an aunt, step-aunt and uncle.

At that time, Andrew Watson was 23 years old and at his footballing peak. He would have been a well-known personality in Glasgow. Only a week before the census was taken, Andrew Watson had captained the Scottish team against England in London, in a famous 6-1 rout. A few days after, he won the Scottish Cup with Queen’s Park in front of a crowd estimated at 10,000. Perhaps as this was a busy time for Andrew, may explain why Agnes was not at home but staying with her grandparents?

Agnes would understand as she grew, that she and her brother Rupert, would have to share her father with the game he loved.

The life of Rupert’s sister, Agnes Maud, is the most obscure of all the Watson children. There are so few records of her, it is impossible to construct an outline of her life. She appears to have dedicated herself to caring for her grandmother. Even though present in the censuses, little can be learnt from the details. She seems to have received little more than an elementary education, had not married, and is not ascribed an occupation in any of the census’s she appeared in.

Agnes was approaching her 33rd birthday, when on 16th December 1912, her grandmother died of senile decay. After this, Agnes disappears. She may have emigrated, perhaps to America or Australia, as potential sightings appear in numerous passenger lists, but these have yet to be confirmed as being her. It might be assumed that Rupert’s passage to Australia would have been paid by the sale of Houston Street, and if so, then Agnes would have had a sum of money that could provide her with options for her future.

Generally, when a person disappears from official registers, it indicates they have either left the country, changed their name, or have died. For now, Agnes’s fate remains a mystery.