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“If you think, have a kindly thought, If you speak, speak generously, Of those who as heroes fought And died to keep you free”
Set up by the Black Country Society. Our aim is to highlight local men who died in the Great War and how they have been commemorated on war memorials. Its scope covers the whole of the present Dudley Municipal Borough and therefore includes the places which have come within its bounds since 1914.
There are over fifty memorials and the number of names exceeds three thousand. Research on the names has been extensive but inevitably errors and omissions occur. We would like to hear about them concentrated on life and work before 1914, involvement in military campaigns and where each man is buried or commemorated.
Robert Bowcott lived at 20 Western Road, Stourbridge, and was educated at Stourbridge Grammar School. He left in 1915 and worked for the London, City and Midland Bank in Stourbridge. He enlisted in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, probably in 1917, at the age of 18. He was then transferred to the 2/8th Worcesters, the local second line Territorial battalion. In 1918 they were in the 61st Division and suffered severely in the first of the German Spring offensives in March. In the April offensive on the Lys the Division was moved to the front line when the Germans had broken through at Armentieres. Fortunes were reversed in the next six months and the Worcesters then took part in the Advance to Victory, starting in August and continuing to November. The battalion's last battle was at Valenciennes, and was a complete success. However, Lance Corporal Robert Bowcott was dangerously wounded in the battle and died of wounds on the 2nd November, only nine days before the armistice. He was 19 years of age and is buried at Awoingt Cemetery (III A 4) near Cambrai and commemorated on the Stourbridge, St. Thomas's church, Methodist church and King Edward VI College Memorials.
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Stourbridge, West Midlands, DY8 1TD
