Donald McGugan was born in Liverpool, Lancashire, England, on 19th May 1892, the son of Hugh and Annie McGugan. His father was a cooper, and Donald was the second youngest of eight children in the family. By the early 1900’s, the family lived at 37, Ashfield Street Cottages, off Scotland Road, Liverpool.
After completing his formal education, Donald worked as a labourer in a sugar refinery before becoming a professional seaman in the British Mercantile Marine. He worked as a trimmer and fireman on steam ships operating out of the port of Liverpool, and he was also a member of the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve.
He signed on for a voyage on the Lusitania at Liverpool, on the 13th April 1915 as a trimmer in the Engineering Department at a monthly rate of pay of £6-0s.-0d. He was on board when the Lusitania left the River Mersey for the last time on the 17th April 1915. His previous ship was the S.S. Orduña.
On the afternoon of the 7th May, he had just come off watch in the engine room when the ship was struck and he and a fellow trimmer had to dive to get through the watertight doors before they were shut. He then had to jump into the sea before the ship
sank and despite being surrounded by bodies, he was able to cling onto a plank of wood for many hours before being rescued. The shock of this was later to turn his hair white!
After surviving the sinking of the Lusitania, he returned to the sea, taking up a position on board the armed merchant cruiser H.M.S. Orbita, which was a sister ship of the S.S. Orduña.
Family lore states that after this, he joined the Canadian Army and served on the Western Front, where he was wounded by poison gas, but this is not entirely correct.
Having joined H.M.S. Orbita at Belfast, Northern Ireland, sometime before she set out for Canada on the 2nd August 1915, he deserted the ship while she was docked at Esquimalt, British Columbia, Canada, on the 25th June 1916. He made his way to Vancouver, British Columbia, where on the 11th July 1916, he enlisted in the 211th Battalion of the Canadian Over-Seas Expeditionary Force. He recorded that his sister, Mary, was his next-of-kin, and her address was given as 37. Ashfield Street Cottages, Liverpool.
Presumably, due to his desertion from H.M.S. Orbita, he enlisted under his mother’s maiden name as 258644 Private Donald Gardner! He deserted from his battalion on the 18th September 1916, but re-enlisted in the 113th Battalion on the 26th September!
On the 6th October 1916, he arrived with his unit in England on board the S.S. Tuscania, and then he was sent to Europe with the 85th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, landing at Le Harve, France, on the 17th March 1917. He suffered gunshot or shrapnel wounds to his left arm on the 30th October 1917, which resulted in him being treated in various field hospitals in France before being sent for further treatment in Cardiff, Glamorganshire, Wales, and later in his home town of Liverpool at the Canadian Military Hospital, which was situated at Kirkdale.
He was transferred to Canada on board H.M.H.S. Araguaya on the 15th April 1918, and having been medically assessed on his arrival at Victoria, British Columbia, he was deemed unfit for further service and discharged from the army on the 28th May 1918. He gave his address as being the Y.M.C.A., Vancouver, on being discharged.
It is not known how long he remained in Canada, or what he did while there, but by 1928 he had returned to his native Liverpool, and in late 1928, he married Mary Westerside. The couple had seven children! Coincidentally, Donald’s sister, Mary McGugan, had married Mary’s brother, Harold Westerside, in Liverpool on the 26th December 1919!
Donald McGugan had returned to the sea on his return to Liverpool, mainly serving on the S.S. Nubian, before ‘swallowing the anchor’ and becoming a general labourer on land. During the Second World War, he was an Air Raid Precautions (A.R.P.) warden.
Donald McGugan died prematurely, aged 54 years, on the 23rd December 1946, and the family maintained that it was as the result of the gassing he had received during his army service; however, there is no record of him being gassed! He was in receipt of a state pension by the Canadian government as a result of his service in the First World War.
He is buried in Anfield Cemetery, Liverpool, Merseyside.
Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths, Liverpool England Church of England Baptisms 1813 – 1919, England and Scotland
Select Cemetery Records 1800 – 2024, 1901 Census of England, 1911 Census of England, 1939 Register, Cunard Records, Canada World War I CEF Personnel Files 1914 – 1918, UK Naval Medal and Awards Roll 1793 – 1972, National Archives of Canada, PRO BT 100/345, PRO BT 348, PRO BT 349, Graham Maddocks, Martha Woosey, Geoff Whitfield, Michael Poirier, Jim Kalafus, Cliff Barry, Paul Latimer, Norman Gray.
Copyright © Peter Kelly.
Revised & Updated – 21st December 2024.