Andrew Watson
John Taylor and Ann Norman have submitted the following:
Andrew Watson was born in Wrekenton in about 1881, the son of John Thomas and Jane Watson. Sadly his father died when he was about five years old and the family lived with his maternal grandfather. On the 1911 census he is shown as living with his wife, Sarah Jane, their two daughters and a son at Favels Houses Eighton Banks. He was employed below ground at a colliery as a Deputy Overman.
He enlisted in Gateshead and served as a Private with 12/13th Battalion, Northumberland Fusiliers, regimental number 83148. He died of his wounds on the Western Front on 24th October 1918.
William Kirby and Brenda McMahon have submitted the following:-
Andrew was born at Gateshead in 1896 to his parents William and Florence (nee Lowther). He had 5 brothers and 1 sister. They were Winifred (b 1898), Robert (b 1901), George (b 1904), William (b 1908), Thomas (b 1910) and John (b 1913).
The 1901 shows the young family living at Fosters Yard, Gateshead which like a number of premises in that area they were filthy and disease ridden. Only Andrew and Winifred were living at that time. Father William was a coal hewer.
By 1911 the family had moved to 5 North View, Wrekenton. There had been several additions to the household by then. Andrew (aged 15) was now working in the mine as a hanger on underground.
Only a year before his death at the front his mother, Florence, died in 1917 at the age of 42.
Andrew died of wounds received in battle on October 24th 1918 aged 22 years.
He is buried alongside his comrades and also 29 German soldiers at Inchy Cemetery. All the men in this cemetery fell in October 1918.
Andrew’s younger brother, Robert serving with the Royal Navy also fell in 1918.
Andrew Watson is remembered in Eighton Banks on E50.01 and E50.02
