Eliza Kate Tyler

Watson’s second wife was English and seven years his junior. Eliza Kate Tyler was born on 16th June 1863 in Fareham, Hampshire, and the Tyler family moved to Glasgow at some point in the 1870s. She was the daughter of Joseph Tyler, an ex-Navy, ex-Merchant Navy steward, ex-baker and confectioner, who stated on their marriage certificate that he was a retired East India merchant but was, in fact, a warehouseman.

In the census for 1871, it states that Eliza was an ‘apprentice saleswoman’, as was her sister Francis, and they may have worked with their father in the same business.

It is conceivable the couple met through Watson’s connections with the warehouse business, even though a few years had passed since his partnership with Miller and Baird had ended.

On 10th February 1887, Andrew and Eliza were married. On the wedding certificate, Andrew gives 15 Florence Place, as his address, where his sister Annette’s had lived for several years and where she would remain until her death in 1889. Annette is also recorded as a witness to the marriage. Andrew may have been staying with his sister since his return from England two years previously. He gives his occupation as an ‘engineer’ and may have been studying for his Board of Trade examinations at the time, which he would later pass in 1891. It may also indicate that at the time of the wedding, he had already made plans to move to Bootle.

Two months after their marriage, both Andrew and his new wife have moved to Liverpool, and later that summer the press announced he had joined Bootle. He went straight into the team to play Liverpool and District.