Mylor Church - Downey / Luce Window 

Mylor, a village on the south Cornish coast, between Truro and Flushing, was the home to a Royal Navy dockyard from the time of the Napoleonic wars.

The North window in the chancel of St Mylor Church is dedicated to the two naval husbands of Susan Schuyler Symons (1806-1883).

She married Captain John Downey in 1833; he was presumed drowned off the coast of Halifax, Nova Scotia, in "her Majesty's ship Briseis that foundered at sea in 1838".

Two years later she married another Packet Captain, William Luce. He retired a few years later when they moved to Wiltshire, where he died in 1874 aged 80.

Susan Luce then returned to Mylor in Cornwall. Both of her late husbands are remembered in this window.She died in Mylor in 1883, having had no children.

The middle panel is a poignant depiction of three drowning sailors, beneath Noah's ark.

The church at Mylor contains many memorials to naval officers, including one to Charles Webbe, another Packet Commander who also was "supposed to have perished with all his crew" near Halifax, Nova Scotia. His wife Mary was Susan Symons's sister.

Back to Thomas Downey father of John.