Fort MacDowall in Matale was named due to his involvement during Kandyan Wars.
for Renfrewshire, and Elizabeth Graham, granddaughter of Alexander Livingstone, 3rd Earl of Callendar.
[4][5] MacDowall was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel of the 57th Regiment of Foot in 1791[6] and served in Flanders in 1793 and later as commander-in-chief in Ceylon from 1798 to 1804.
In 1802, as a Major-General, he was appointed Colonel commandant of a Battalion of the 40th Regiment of Foot in place of Lord Hutchinson.
[9] Following a period of dispute with the civil government of Madras over his exclusion from its council, and the affair of the arrest of Quartermaster-General John Munro, he resigned his commission in January 1809 and took ship for England on the East Indiaman Lady Jane Dundas.