ABLE SEAMAN GEORGE LOWDON
ROYAL NAVAL DIVISION VOLUNTEER RESERVE
1ST JANUARY 1916 AGE 19
BURIED: LANCASHIRE LANDING CEMETERY, TURKEY
"He was the soul of honour" may not be the sort of thing we would say about someone today but we can still understand what the words imply. A popular term of approval during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, its earliest appearance in print seems to have been in 'The Adventurers, or Scenes of Ireland in the Reign of Elizabeth', a series of fictionalised scenes published anonymously in 1825. Here it was used of the Elizabethan Irish patriot, O'Moore - who was in fact an implacable enemy of British power in Ireland.
"O'Moore was a model of perfect beauty; he might have served to guide the chisel which gave life to the Apollo. But this was his least recommendation; he was a brave soldier, and a skilful leader of his clansmen. He was eloquent in conversation, an accomplished scholar, a poet in his native language, generous, kind-hearted, and a lover of truth and justice. ... It was said of O'Moore, that in his whole life he was never guilty of a bad or an equivocal action. He was the soul of honour, and every quality he possessed had a certain perfection and brightness about it, that made it look superior to the same quality in any other man; or perhaps the lustre it seemed to possess was derived from the reflected brightness of his other virtues, as diamonds in a bouquet add to each other's splendour"
George Lowdon was a miner from Blaydon-on-Tyne in County Durham. He joined the Royal Naval Division in November 1914 and served with Hawke Battalion on Gallipoli from 30 May 1915 until his death on New Year's Day 1916 seven days before the last troops left the peninsular.