Alexander ‘Alex’ Stevenson Cowan was born in Bramley, Leeds, Yorkshire, England, on the 14th November 1896, the son of Maurice and Alice Cowan (née Stevenson). His father was a bus ticket inspector and a tram ticket inspector at various times and through his work moved his family a number of times during Alex’s childhood. The family lived at various times in Leeds, Birmingham, and Birkenhead.
On completing his education, Alex worked as an office boy before he decided on a life of adventure by joining the British Mercantile Marine as a steward. In 1915, he lived at 10, Heath Street, Liverpool, Lancashire.
On the 12th April 1915, he engaged as a lift attendant in the Stewards' Department on board the Lusitania at Liverpool, for the liner’s forthcoming voyage to New York and back. His monthly rate of pay in this rank was £2-10s-0d. (£2.50p.). It was not the first time that he had served on the vessel.
Having successfully completed the liner’s crossing to New York, Alex Cowan was serving as a lift attendant in the saloon class accommodation area, on the early afternoon of the 1st May, when the Lusitania left New York to begin her return voyage to her home port. Then, six days after that, on the afternoon of the 7th May, she was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-20, within sight of the coast of southern Ireland. At that time, she was only about fourteen hours steaming time away from her home.
Alex Cowan can not have been on duty when the liner was struck, or maybe he realised the danger and got out of his lift, for it is suspected that passengers did perish in the lifts, when the electric power stopped once the generators eventually failed.
Having escaped from the sinking ship, he was eventually rescued from the sea and landed at Queenstown, from where he made it back to Liverpool. On his eventual return there, he reported to the Cunard offices in Water Street and was officially discharged from the last voyage of the Lusitania. He was also paid the balance of wages owing to him, which amounted to £2-17s-8d. (£2.88p). This sum was in respect of his service on board from the 17th April 1915, until the 8th May, 24 hours after the vessel had gone down!
Some time after the sinking, however, he must also have tried to claim compensation for injuries sustained in the sinking, for on the 22nd July 1915, Cunard’s Winnipeg office wrote to the office in New York, in reply to a letter concerning correspondence from a Mr. Crocker in relation to him. The letter stated: -
We are in receipt of yours of the 9th instant, together with the enclosure from Mr. Crocker in reference to Alexander Cowan, 1st Class lift attendant on the S.S. “Lusitania“. We have seen our shipping department with reference to this man and it is quite evident that the injuries received were not of such a serious nature as it appears from Mr. Crocker’s letter, in as much as Alexander Cowan is now a waiter on board the “Aquitania”, which is in government service.
The R.M.S Aquitania was similar in size and construction to the Lusitania and her sister ship the Mauretania but was slightly larger.
Alex Cowen enlisted in the 3rd Battalion of the King’s Liverpool Regiment of the British Army in March 1918, and as 94854 Private A.S. Cowan, was assigned to the regimental depot in the reserve force. He completed a motor lorry driving course and in September 1918, he was transferred to the Mechanised Transport Section of the Royal Army Service Corps and sent to France. He was demobilised on the 20th August 1920 as M/403841 Acting Corporal A.S. Cowan.
By now, his family were residing at 48. Vine Street, Liverpool, and following his military service, he secured employment as a waiter at the Midland Hotel, Ranelagh Street, Liverpool, which is still in business today, but only as a public bar. Four of his younger siblings – Walter, Dorothy, William, and Hesketh, also worked in the hotel at this time!
By the late 1920’s he was residing at 55. Hugh Street, Pimlico, London, and described as a hotel keeper. On the 31st January 1928, he boarded the Mongolia at Southampton, bound for Penang, Malaysia, but it is not known if he went there for a holiday or to take up a position in a hotel there.
It is not known when he returned to England, but in 1939 he was residing with Dorothy May Burston as his common law wife, and their children, Pamela, who was born in 1931, and Gillian, who was born in 1936, at 42. Palmar Road, Maidstone, Kent. Alex Cowan was working as the manager of a works canteen.
As far as is known, Alex Cowan died in Lambeth, London, in early 1950, aged 53 years.
Register of Births, Marriages, and Deaths, 1901 Census of England, 1911 Census of England, 1921 Census of England, 1939 Register, UK Outward Passenger Lists 1890 – 1960, Cunard Records, UK Campaign Medals Awarded to World War I Merchant Seamen 1914 – 1925, PRO BT 100/345, PRO BT 351/1/29571, UniLiv.D92/1/7, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.
Revised & Updated –16th January 2023.