On 28 January 1881 at the Battle of Laing's Nek, South Africa, during the charge of the mounted men, Private Doogan saw that Major William Vesey Brownlow, KDG, had had his horse shot from under him and was dismounted among the Boers.

With his first wife Mary he had ten children (his first child born 1882);[3] two sons of theirs died on active service with the army in World War I.

[9] His second marriage, later proved invalid, took place on 16 September 1929 at Welshpool Registry Office to Martha Maria Roberts, who was 39 years his junior and had been employed as his housekeeper following his widowhood.

She had previously married at Wrexham, on 8 November 1923, David Philip Roberts, who she claimed was dead at the time she met Doogan but turned out to be still alive after the later wedding.

Doogan, the innocent party, gave evidence as witness, while the estranged legal husband appeared simply to confirm his identity and their own marriage.