He was the husband of Emily Lumsden Simpson, of ‘Glenleigh’, Staindrop Rd., Barnard Castle, Co. Durham.
Linda Gowans has submitted the following:-
Rowland Simpson was born in 1885 at Hurworth on Tees, one of seven brothers shown on the 1891 census for High Rockcliffe, Hurworth Place. His widower father Henry and two of his brothers were farmers. His mother Elizabeth, from Shildon, had died earlier that year.
By 1901 he had moved to Sunderland, and was one of four boarders with Annie Scott and her daughter Francis at 11 Cromwell Street. He was working as an Apprentice Fitter (Steam Engine).
The 1911 census shows Rowland as a Marine Engineer at Doxfords, at 10 Brookland Road, in the household of single women Eliza White Store and Sophia Store (Schoolmistress at St Andrew’s Church School). The following year in Sunderland he married Emily Lumsden Alder, a Drapery Assistant, whose widower father was a Ship Pilot with Sunderland Pilotage Service. Earlier research notes in-laws at 20 Bede Street, Roker, at what date we cannot tell, nor do we know when the move to Barnard Castle took place: when his Mercantile Marine and British Medals were issued to Emily in April 1922 her address was 72 Ormonde Street, Sunderland.
We have no details of Rowland’s career with the Mercantile Marine until the notices of his death, which show him as Chief Engineer on S.S. ‘Shadwell’. She was a 4,091 GRT steam cargo ship built in 1904 by J. L. Thompson & Sons Ltd. at their North Sands yard for Tyzack & Branfoot Steam Shipping Co. Ltd. of Sunderland. From 1912 she was owned by Well Line Ltd.
She was damaged on March 22nd 1918 by a torpedo fired by submarine UB 50 north of Bizerta, Tunisia, when en route from Naples to Bizerta in ballast. The ship was repaired and, with changes of name, continued to sail in Indian and Japanese ownership until, ironically, as Kenzui Maru she was ultimately torpedoed by an American submarine, U.S.S. Blenny, in 1944.
The attack in 1918 resulted in thirteen losses. Two of the crew are buried in Bizerta Cemetery; the rest are remembered on Tower Hill Memorial. Chief Engineer Simpson’s name is there, along with those of three other Sunderland men: Second Engineer John T. Douthwaite of 7 Tavistock Place, Fourth Engineer Officer Thomas W. T. Jameson of 26 Amberley Street and Third Engineer John W. Williamson of 4 Barclay Street. It would seem from the occupations that the torpedo struck in or close to the engine room.
Rowland Simpson is remembered at Sunderland on S140.009, S140.010 and S140.048 part 8 and S140.120 and on our List of Ships’ crews