People on board

DOWDLE, Reginald Kimberley

Reginald Kimberley Dowdle was born in Swansea, Wales in 1899 to William Henry Dowdle and Ellen Landick. He was the sixth of their nine children, six of whom were alive in 1911. Reginald was baptised in 1904 along with three other of his siblings, the four youngest surviving children. When William Dowdle married in 1890 he gave his occupation as ‘Baker’ but by 1901 he was a ‘Waiter’ and in 1911 a ‘Hotel Waiter’. In the 1901 census Ellen Dowdle was living with her mother and step-father and siblings, and with her was one year old Reginald. Meanwhile William Dowdle was living with his parents, five of his siblings, and four of his own children.

William and Ellen appear to have been living as a family at the time of their four children’s baptisms, in Hafod Terrace. In 1911 they were living on Neath Road and the eldest son, Charles, was working as a ‘Tramway Conductor’ and the next, William aged sixteen, was a Labourer.

Reginald enlisted in Cardiff in the Scottish Horse and he was with the 2/1st Second-Line Regiment in Ireland in October 1918. Presumably returning home on leave he travelled on RMS Leinster on the 10th of October. He did not survive the sinking nor was his body recovered. His name is recorded on the Hollybrook Memorial in Southampton and on the Swansea War Memorial. His brother William also enlisted and survived the war.