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Edward Courtenay

Edward Courtenay (died April 1917) was a British Army lieutenant who served on the Western Front of World War I.

Biography[]

Edward Courtenay was born in England, and he studied at Oxford despite his desire to become a farmer. He was commissioned into the British Army as a lieutenant during World War I, and he was blinded by a German mustard gas attack while serving on the Western Front. In 1917, he was sent from the battlefield to a hospital in Downton, Yorkshire, where he befriended nurse Sybil Crawley and Corporal Thomas Barrow. Barrow persuaded Courtenay, who had grown depressed about not being able to hunt again, to keep up the fight even if he might not see again. Despite Courtenay's depression, Dr. Richard Clarkson ordered that Courtenay be transferred to a convalescent home at Farley Hall. On the eve of his transfer, Courtenay committed suicide by slitting his wrists. His death pushed Sybil and Isobel Crawley to persuade Cora Crawley, Countess of Grantham to convert Downton Abbey into a wartime convalescent home.

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