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William Mason

William Mason (died 26 July 1918) was the second footman at Downton Abbey, Yorkshire and a British Army soldier who was killed in action during World War I.

Biography[]

William Mason was born in Yorkshire, England, the only one of his parents' five children to survive infancy. He became a footman at Downton Abbey to please his mother, as he had initially wished to be a groom due to his love for horses. Mason got along poorly with first footman Thomas Barrow, who took advantage of his acquiescence to push him around and made harsh remarks about William's reaction to his mother's death. During World War I, Violet Crawley, Countess of Grantham wrote to the Army Medical Examiners to prevent William from being sent off to war, claiming that he had a skin condition; she did so to prevent William's father from potentially losing his last child in the war. However, he voluntarily enlisted in the British Army after being given a white feather of cowardice by a pair of local activist women at a charity concert. He persuaded the kitchen maid Daisy Robinson to become engaged to marry him before he was sent to war, and he served as a batman to Matthew Crawley. He was mortally wounded when shell fragments damaged his lungs (the same explosion temporarily paralyzing Crawley) during the Battle of Amiens, and he was repatriated to Leeds. He was later transferred to Downton Abbey to live his last days close to his father and his coworkers, and he persuaded Daisy to marry him before he died, as she would receive a war widow's pensions. Their wedding ceremony was held at his deathbed, with the Crawley family and their servants in attendance, and he died of his wounds shortly after.

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