Lost when the steamship Mabel Baird,of West Hartlepool, was torpedoed and sunk off the Lizard on December 22nd, 1917.
William Walker Coward was born on December 16th, 1882, and was baptised on January 17th, 1883, at Holy Trinity Church, Hartlepool. He was the son of William Conrad Coward, a Moulder in the iron foundry at a local marine engineering works, and Isabella Sarah Coward (nee Walker).
The 1901 Census shows William living at No.4, Back Dock Street, Throston, with his parents and siblings Margaret (aged 21), William (18), Alfred (16), and Edith (14). In 1909 he married Pauline Charlotte Ann Gowing (born West Hartlepool), at Easington, Co. Durham. The couple seem to have been living in this area in the early years of their marriage, as in 1910 their son William was born, at nearby Thornley.
The 1911 Census shows Pauline is living with her in-laws at No.5, Dock Street (recorded as just three rooms). The couple also had another son, Arthur Conrad Coward, born at Hartlepool on July 9th, 1911, and threfore not recorded on the 1911 Census. Arthur died in Warwickshire in 2001.
Memorial records give William’s address at the time of his death as 18, Arch Street, Hartlepool.
