| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
Private William Dowson, aged 27, was taken prisoner on 12 Apr 1918 at La Bassee in northern France. William was in the 7th Battalion of the Tank Corps at the time and the British army was retreating in the face of a surprise German attack, Operation Georgette. He had been arrived in France 18 Apr 1915 and was immediately put into action at St Julien, near Ypres. He was a private in the 5th Battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment and had been in the TA before the war but was transferred with five other men from the Yorkshires to the Tank Corps, they were given new consecutive regimental numbers. William was nominally allocated to the Gardelegen POW Camp in northern Germany but in reality was kept behind German lines to undertake labouring duties, digging trenches and construction work. Shortly after the Armistice of 11 Nov 1918 he was set free and made for British lines. In the company of fellow Beverley captives from this area, George Neill and John B Gray on the evening of 23 Nov 1918, he arrived back at Beverley station and was welcomed by the Mayor, Alderman Harry Wray, and large crowds.
Before enlisting William was a labourer living in Lurk Lane with his mother Mary. He was born in Filey 25 Nov 1892 and baptised at Beverley Minster 19 Jun 1893. His father George Dowson worked for the North Eastern Railway as a porter and had been transferred to Beverley Station. Mary Dowson looked after the First Class Ladies Waiting Room at the station whilst William’s brothers George and Charles also worked there as labourer and porter respectively. William was one of eight children.
After the war William lived with his unmarried sister, Emily, at 51 Lurk Lane until the mid 1950s when the street was demolished. He moved to the Bridlington area where he died in 1974. Charles Dowson served in the South Staffordshire Regiment and the Labour Corps whilst George Dowson a fellow Beverley Terrier, served in the 5th Yorks through the war. William was awarded the 1914-15 Star and the War and Victory medals. All three are commemorated on the St Andrew Street Street Shrine
Includes photograph, information taken from census, military records, Commonwealth War Graves, newspapers |