David Wardlaw Ramsay

Lieutenant-Commander David Wardlaw Ramsay (11 June, 1890 – 11 March, 1924) was an officer in the Royal Navy. He was sent directly to the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth as part of the September 1905 intake term. His Chinese language skills were noted, and he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant on 31 December, 1912.

David was appointed to the battleship Hercules on 2 September, 1913 and fought at the Battle of Jutland. After the war, he was appointed in command of the gunboat Scarab on 18 February, 1919. He went on to to conduct operations on the Yangtze River.  He was hospitalised twice, in 1919 and 1920.

In December 1921, he was admitted to Plymouth Hospital for gastrointestinal problems. While commanding the sweeping sloop Magnolia , the Commander-in-Chief, China sent a telegram to the Admiralty reporting that Wardlaw-Ramsay had been hospitalised for excessive drinking. He was relegated to light cruiser Durban, while negotiating to be placed on the Retired List on 1 December, 1923.

Wardlaw-Ramsay died just three months later, in Paris on 11 March, 1924, by suicide. He was only 34.  His brother Arthur had the sad task of arranging his burial in the Cimetière Nouveau de St Germain en Laye.  A memorial plaque was fixed to the wall of the burial plot at Whitehill Aisle.  We children were told he had died following an unhappy love affair in Paris. Was this fiction?