DRIVER ALBERT JESSE MCDOWALL
ROYAL FIELD ARTILLERY
2ND OCTOBER 1917 AGE 20
BURIED: LIJSSENTHOEK MILITARY CEMETERY, BELGIUM
This is a rather mangled, though still recognisable, quotation from Joseph Addison's play, Cato (1712). The words are spoken by Cato's son, Portius, to Sempronius, one of the senators:
"Tis not in mortals to command success; but we'll do more Sempronius, we'll deserve it."
The play was a favourite of George Washington's who quoted from it regularly, particularly these lines.
McDowall's father, a painter and decorator in Maida Vale, chose the inscription, although by the time he chose it he and his wife were living in New Zealand.
McDowell was entitled to the 1915 Star having arrived in France on 5 October 1915. He survived for almost exactly two years, serving with the 7th Divisional Ammunition Column throughout the Somme campaign and the Arras Offensive before the Division moved to Ypres in the summer of 1917. Here it took part in the Third Ypres Campaign: Polygon Wood, 26 September to 3 October; Broodseinde 4 October; Poelcapelle 9 October, 1st Passchendaele 12 October. McDowall died in a Casualty Clearing Station at Lijssenthoek on the 13th.