THOMPSON

William Charles Rowley was born in Staffordshire, England, March 12, 1882, and died in London, Ontario on October 14, 1950, at age 68. A skilled cycle mechanic in Bristol before the age of the automobile, he boarded with the Vincent family as a young tradesman, married Rosella "Rose" Victoria Vincent in 1905, and in May 1912, just five weeks after the Titanic sank, sailed for Canada aboard the RMS Lusitania to build a home for his family before sending for them. A workplace accident in London, Ontario cost him an eye and ended his trade for good, but he spent the rest of his working life at the Bank of Toronto, and raised six children with Rose. He is buried at Mount Pleasant Cemetery in London.

Staffordshire beginnings

William was born in Staffordshire, England, on March 12, 1882, one of six children born to William Rowley and Jane Shepard. Only two of his siblings have been documented so far; the rest require verification. At some point in his youth or early adulthood he left Staffordshire for Bristol, where he trained as a cycle mechanic — a genuinely skilled trade at a moment when bicycles, not automobiles, were the primary vehicle of working-class mobility.

Bristol, and the Vincent household

Sometime around the turn of the century, the young William Rowley arrived in Bristol looking for work and, like many single tradesmen of the era, needed somewhere to live. He became a boarder in the household of Emma Vincent, a widow raising six children alone in Bristol's industrial district. Emma's second-oldest daughter, Rose, was already out working in the boot-and-shoe trade to help support the family.

William and Rose married on September 17, 1905 at St Matthew Moorefields, Bristol. The parish register records William as 23, a bachelor and mechanic, and Rose as 21, a spinster; both gave their address as 13 Dean Lane. Rose's brother — the "Uncle Bill" of later family lore — appears elsewhere in the family's story as the one who would eventually talk William into leaving England altogether.

By the 1911 census, William and Rose, now 29 and 26, were living at 35 Thomas Street, Bristol, with three young children: William Aquila, Edith Florence, and infant Hilda. Three rooms, total, for five people. No indoor plumbing. One coal fire for heat and cooking.

Alone on the Lusitania

William went first. Family memory lays the blame, fondly, on Rose's brother William Vincent, who convinced him Canada offered a future Bristol's rigid class system never would. William sailed from Liverpool aboard the RMS Lusitania in May 1912 — barely five weeks after the Titanic disaster, when the newspapers on the docks were still printing daily lists of the dead and inquiries into the sinking were still active on both sides of the Atlantic. He was 30 years old, leaving behind a wife and four young children — including a newborn he had never met — for a country he'd never seen.

He landed at New York on May 18, 1912, then travelled inland by rail to London, Ontario, to find work and a home before sending for his family. That left Rose in Bristol for fourteen months, managing four children on whatever money he could send back, with nothing but slow transatlantic mail to know whether he was safe.

Building a life in London, Ontario

Rose and the children joined William in London, Ontario in August 1913. The family settled first at 152 John Street, where William is recorded in the 1914 city directory as "mechanic." By 1915 his listed occupation had changed abruptly to "janitor, Bank of Toronto," at the same address. The gap is explained by family oral history: William suffered a serious workplace accident at the Dennis Wire & Iron/steel works in London and lost an eye, ending his mechanical trade instantly, in an era with no functioning workers' compensation system yet in force in Ontario.

Dennis Wire & Iron Works, where William lost his eye, was no small neighbourhood shop — by the outbreak of the First World War it employed roughly 150 people out of a plant on the north side of Dundas Street near Ridout, making architectural and structural ironwork (railings, stairs, ornamental cresting) as well as industrial equipment, with branches in several Canadian cities. It later became Dennisteel in 1936, but traded under the Dennis Wire & Iron Works name throughout William's time there. While Dennisteel is no longer operating, the place it held along the banks of the Thames is now Museum London.

William spent the rest of his working life doing building-maintenance and engineering work at the Bank of Toronto — work the family remembered simply as "janitor," although a 1935 voters list records his occupation more grandly as "engineer," likely reflecting both the real technical demands of running a coal-fired boiler and building systems in a multi-storey bank building, and a measure of pride.

Rose had three more children in Ontario, bringing the family to six children in total. The family moved several times around London: to the rear of 642 Richmond Street in the early 1920s, to 173 Central Avenue by 1931, and to 594 Talbot Street by 1935. By the 1931 census, eight people — William, Rose, and their children — were living in a rented six-room brick house on Central Avenue for $25 a month, without a radio, a specific marker the census used for tight finances during the Depression.

Final years and death

William Charles Rowley died in London, Ontario on October 14, 1950, at age 68. Family sources note that both he and Rose battled heart conditions in their later years. Shortly after his death, on December 14, 1950, Rose purchased the family's burial lot at Mount Pleasant Cemetery — Lot 1, west half, graves 5 through 8, Section T — securing a resting place for William, herself, and their children.

He is buried at Mount Pleasant Cemetery in London, alongside Rose, who outlived him by seventeen years, and in time, two of their daughters, Edith and Doreen.