BOWEN, Edward

Edward Bowen lived with his parents at 13 King Street, Wollaston. He attended the Baptist Chapel in Hanbury Hill and was employed at Turneys as a leather dresser. His brother was the manager of the County Express. He enlisted in the Worcesters and probably in 1917 he was transferred to the Machine Gun Corps. He was posted to 219 Company which came up to the front line for the start of Third Ypres on 31st July 1917. He was seriously wounded in the attack and was taken to a Casualty Clearing Station near Dunkerque. He died there on the 8th August. Private Edward Bowen was buried in Zuydcoote Military Cemetery (1 C 28). He is commemorated on the Stourbridge, Wollaston church and Baptist chapel Memorials. In a letter from Turneys to his father the manager said they 'had heard with deepest sorrow of the death of their old and esteemed shopmate', while the pastor at the Baptist Chapel made sympathetic reference at the Sunday service to his death and to the Wesleyan Chaplain at the front who had assured him that 'he had passed away peacefully'.