David Henry Dowsley was born in Clinton, Ontario, Canada, on the 26th August 1850, the son of David and Margaret Dowsley (née Boyd). His father was a shoemaker, and David was the second eldest of four children.
On the 10th May 1875, he qualified as a medical doctor and recorded on the Ontario Medical Register. He was a member of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons, Ontario, and he began practising in Kingston, Ontario.
On the 10th June 1879, he married Gertrude Elizabeth Alice Agnew at Kingston, Ontario, and the couple had eight children. The family resided at 154. Johnston Street, Kingston. Around 1900, Dr. Dowsley took up a position in Ottawa, Ontario, but by 1914 he was suffering from ill-health, and he spent the winter of 1914/1915 in the West Indies.
In the spring of 1915, instead of returning home, Dr. Dowsley decided to travel to Europe. He had two sons serving on the Western Front by this time – Lieutenant Colin Grey Dowsley, and Gunner Garnet Wynne Dowsley, both serving with the Canadian Field Artillery, and it is likely he felt it was his patriotic duty to offer his services.
Consequently, he travelled directly from the West Indies to New York, where he booked third class passage on the
Lusitania to Liverpool. One might have expected a doctor to have been able to afford to have travelled either saloon or second class, but because of his ill-health, his income had lessened. While in New York, he had some of his medical instruments sent to him from Ottawa.
He arrived at the Cunard berth at Pier 54 on the west side of the city, on the morning of 1st May 1915 in time for the liner’s scheduled 10.00 a.m. departure from the port. This was then postponed until the early afternoon, however, whilst the liner took on board passengers and crew and loaded cargo from Anchor Liner the Cameronia
which the British Admiralty had requisitioned as a troop ship.
Then after a fairly uneventful voyage, six days out of New York, on the afternoon of 7th May, the
Lusitania was torpedoed by the German submarine U-20, twelve miles off The Old Head of Kinsale in southern Ireland and sank only eighteen minutes later. At that stage of her voyage, she was a mere twelve or fourteen hours steaming time away from her Liverpool destination.
Dr. Dowsley was one of some 240 third class passengers who lost their lives as a result of this action and as his body was never recovered from the sea and identified afterwards, he has no known grave. He was aged 64 years at the time of his death.
His widow, Gertrude submitted a claim for the loss of his life with the Canadian Commission which had been established to deal with such matters. She made no claim for the loss of his possessions and personal effects, and stated in her submission that she was being supported by her family and that she had inherited $1,000.00 from a life insurance policy Dr. Dowsley had taken out. The Commission awarded her $5,000.00 in April 1926.
Further tragedy as a result of the war descended upon the Dowsley family on the 1st December 1917, when David’s son, Garnet, was listed as ‘killed in action’ when he was struck, and killed instantly, by fragments from a German shell that had exploded in front of him while he was serving in the vicinity of Passchendaele. He was laid to rest in Vlamertinghe New Military Cemetery. His grave is in Plot X, Row A, Grave 1.
Ontario Canada Marriages 1826 – 1937, 1861 Census of Canada, 1871 Census of Canada, 1881 Census of Canada, 1901 Census of Canada, Ontario Medical Register, Cunard Records, Canadian Claims Case No. 810, PRO BT 100/345, Deaths at Sea 1871 – 1968, Canada War Graves Register (Circumstances of Casualty) 1914 – 1948, Graham Maddocks, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.