Lovatt Davidson
1874 — 14 March 1938
Lovatt Davidson (10‑78‑62)
Born in Scotland in 1874, Lovatt was 42 when he enrolled in the AIF in June 1916, his job listed as a Coachman. His service record says he embarked in October 1916, proceeded overseas to France and a few months later back to base classed as unfit. Soon after he left England to return to Australia as medially unfit with senility disability.
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Although discharged as unfit, and his medical file said he suffered from rheumatism during the war, he was denied a war pension after he was unable to continue his job as a cleaner due to ill health. He died possessing only a watch, chain and spectacles. In the Qld Museum memoirs they wrote that Lovatt described his health as,
“I hereby declare that my condition if anything is worse than at the time of my discharge. I suffer with palpitations, giddiness and shortness of breath. For some time past I have not been sleeping well and have gone off my food. My nerves are giving me considerable trouble and I am shaky, the least excitement knocking me over.”
After several months in the inebriation institution in Dunwich in 1925 he wrote,
“At night I am unable to sleep properly through pains in my body and my heart. I have to sit up very often to get my breath again. I also get very bad dreams of which I cannot explain the sensations. These dreams leave me very weak.”
Lovatt passed away on the 14th March 1938 with his death certificate recording the cause as a heart attack.
L. Davidson, one of the soldiers photographed in The Queenslander Pictorial, supplement to The Queenslander, 1915. - State Library of Queensland.