Thomas Leslie McDOWALL
Year of Birth: 1895
Place of Birth: Cooktown, Queensland, Australia
Date of Enlistment: 28 April 1916
Date and Place of Embarkation: 19 September 1916 at Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Ship: HMAT Seang Choon
Rank: Private
Unit(s): 31st Battalion A.I.F.
Regimental Number: 3857
Died: 26 September 1917
Thomas Leslie McDowall was born in Cooktown Qld in 1895 with his twin sister Aileen. His parents, John and Mary (nee McGlen) were married in Cooktown in 1887 and had a large family including two sets of twins – Isabella Jane (b. 1888), James (b. 1889), John Alexander (b. 1891), Mary Amelia (b 1893) Aileen and Thomas Leslie (b. 1895) and Ivy and Bessie (b. 1898).
Tom McDowall enlisted in the A.I.F. on 28 April 1916 after having previously joined the Kennedy Regiment and embarked on the Kanowna in readiness for the capture of German New Guinea earlier in the year. The ship returned to Townsville after the crew refused to proceed past Thursday Island due to the lack of fresh water, the reason the soldiers were called the “Dirty 500”.
Both his parents predeceased him and he named his brother, James, his next of kin.
He was 20 years 6 months of age, 5 feet 3½ inches tall and weighed 135 pounds. He had a dark complexion, grey eyes and dark brown hair. His religion was Roman Catholic.
He embarked from Brisbane on 19 September 1916 on the HMAT Seang Choon arriving in Plymouth England on 9 December.
He joined the 8th Training Battalion at Hurdcott on 20 December, spent time sick in hospital over the Christmas period before shipping out to Etaples, France on the S.S. Golden Eagle. He joined the 31st Battalion on 6 March 1917.
He was killed in action “in the field Belgium” on 26 September 1917 and was “buried in the vicinity of Polygon Wood”. He is now remembered on the Menin Gate Memorial at Ypres, Belgium.
Shortly after Thomas McDowall enlisted and before he embarked for overseas, the Mareeba Oddfellows Lodge held a function to honour its members who were fighting or had died. Private McDowall was among those honoured and his name was placed on the Lodge’s Honour Board.
Online Resources
NAA: B2455 (McDOWALL T L) National Archives of Australia
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
National Library of Australia: Trove Digitised Newspapers
Australian Light Horse Studies Centre
Queensland Registrar of Births Deaths & Marriages
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