William Richard Higgs BOWDEN
Regimental no. 22683
5 January 1892 – 17 June 1917
William BOWDEN, usually known as Will or by his nickname Smiler, born in Wellington in 1892, was the eighth child of Martha Pope and Samuel Bowden.
In 1875, Martha had married John Igoe, in Whanganui. He was a seaman but frequently before the court charged with being an idle and disorderly person and the relationship did not last. In 1884, Samuel Bowden told a magistrate the he had been living with Mrs Igoe for seven years (since 1877) and would marry her if he could. It seems that this was not possible until after the death of John Igoe in 1909. Samuel and Martha were then free to marry, which they did in 1915.
After the birth in Whanganui of Martha and Samuel’s son, Thomas Samuel or Tom, in 1879, the family moved to Wellington. There, Martha and Samuel had six daughters before the birth of their second son, Will, in 1894. Four more daughters were born during the next seven years, a total of 12 births over a period of 22 years.
When Will was born in 1892 the family was living in Walter Street, Te Aro, close to the central city. The 1898-99 Wises Directory recorded Samuel’s address as Mitchelltown, although the family may have moved there earlier as Will attended the Mitchelltown school. In the 1905–06 electoral roll Samuel gave his address as 50 Aro Street, (on part of the site of what is now Aro Park), and the family then moved around the corner into Epuni Street, sometimes at number 33 and sometimes at 31. In the directories and electoral rolls throughout this period, Samuel gave his occupation as cook. It is not certain where he worked throughout this period, although the fact that he was enrolled on the Seamen’s Roll for Wellington Central in 1911 indicates that some of his work was on the coastal vessel ss Putaki.
On 30 April 1912, when he was 20, Will married Irish-born Catherine Walsh, 25. The marriage took place at the Sacred Heart Basilica in Wellington, presumably after Will had been received into the Catholic church. At the time, Will’s occupation was driver, although he was described as a labourer four years later when he enlisted to serve with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force. The couple began their married life living with Will’s parents in Epuni Street. Their first child, Catherine May was born in 1913, and their second, Billie Norah Muriel, in late 1916, several months after Will had left to serve on the Western Front. After giving Catherine’s name to their first child, the couple had been planning to give Will’s name to their next child, had it been a boy. Although it wasn’t, she was given the name of Billie just the same, to carry Will’s name into the next generation. (Information contributed by Andrea Warn (Will’s great grand-daughter) taken from https://www.nzwargraves.org.nz/user-story-1406286179 , accessed on 15 July 2017.)
When Will enlisted with the Army on 11 May 1916, the family had moved to Broadway Terrace (since re-named Torrens Terrace), running off Webb Street in Te Aro. He was then 23. His personnel file describes him as having a fresh complexion, with light brown hair and blue eyes, five feet six inches tall and weighing nine stone 11 pounds, roughly 62 kilograms. It is probably no coincidence that Will’s brother Tom, then 37, enlisted just four days later, on 15 May 1916. Tom had married Beatrice Maude Lines in 1899 and with four children, could perhaps have been regarded as a lower priority for recruitment. It seems likely, however, that the brothers were among those who thought that serving overseas would be an adventure. As it turned out, they embarked on separate ships several weeks apart, Will on the Aparima as part of the 16th Reinforcements leaving on 19 August 1916, and Tom on 29 September on the Pakeha, part of the 17th Reinforcements.
Will disembarked at Devonport, near the city of Plymouth, England, on 25 October 1916. With his fellow recruits, he was despatched to Sling Camp in Wiltshire for further training before being sent to France. His passage to France was delayed, however, by two spells in hospital attached to the New Zealand camp at Codford, the first time to treat a venereal infection and the second to deal with a case of mumps.
He was eventually transferred to the newly-formed 3rd Battalion, Wellington Regiment and posted to 7 Company at the beginning of April 1917. While it was being set up, the battalion was based at Codford and undertook its training on the Salisbury Plain. The unit received orders on 25 May to begin the move to France. As part of the 3rd Battalion, Will arrived in France in time to see the launch of the battle for Messines Ridge. The battalion did not take an active role in the battle but was assigned to repair and reconstruction of the Wulverghem–Messines Road immediately after the attack had been launched on 7 June.
One week later, on 14 June, the 3rd Battalion received what the official history described as ‘its real baptism of trench warfare.’[i] The battalion initially came under continuous shelling but remained in the line for eight days, active in patrolling. The battalion was eventually relieved in the trenches by 3rd Otago on the night of 22 June and went back to rest billets in Nieppe, a village in northern France close to the Belgian border, to remain there until the end of the first week of July.
Will was killed in the middle of that period of patrolling, on 17 June 1917, at the age of 25. He was buried in the Motor Car Corner Cemetery, so named because the corner marked the point beyond which military cars were not permitted to proceed towards the front. The cemetery is less than 3 kilometres north of Armentières (in France) but is located in the Hainaut area of Belgium, 17 kilometres south of Ypres. Will is one of 82 NZ casualties (out of a total of 126 casualties) buried in this location.
He would have been upset at how Catherine found out about his death. She went to collect his war pay at the Wellington Post Office, only to be told by the cashier: ‘We don’t pay out for dead men’. The official notification by telegram was still on its way. (Andrea Warn information as above)
Will’s brother Tom had meanwhile left England for France in December 1916, and was posted to the 1st Battalion Canterbury Infantry Regiment. At the end of the war he returned to Wellington. His wife Beatrice died in 1920, when she was 40. Tom remarried in 1925, to Minnie Small, and continued living and working in Wellington until he died, aged 61, in 1941.
On 10 July 1917, the wife of his brother Tom published a notice in the Evening Post Roll of Honour:
BOWDEN. Killed in action somewhere in France, on the 17th June, 1917, William Richard Higgs (Smiler), youngest son of Mr and Mrs H Bowden, Epuni-street; aged 24 years.
Inserted by his loving sister-in-law, B M Bowden, and nieces, 10 Yule Street Kilbirnie, and W J Williamson
Two years on, there was a memorial notice from Will’s parents and another from his wife. The one from his parents included the lines:
Your cheery, sunny countenance
Will not from memory fade;
For we see you in the photo
In the home you died to save.
And when our hearts are sore for you,
We seem to hear you say,
‘Break not your heart, dear mother,
We will meet on that Eternal Day.’
Samuel Richard Higgs Bowden died at the end of January 1924, at the age of 75. He was buried in Karori Cemetery, joining three of his daughters and Tom's wife who had predeceased him, in 1906, 1914, 1917 and 1920. The grave used to have a wooden fence marking its location in the first Anglican section of the cemetery, but no memorial.
[i] The Wellington Regiment (NZEF) 1914–1918, W H Cunningham, C A L Treadwell and K S Hanna, Fergusson and Osborne, 1928 p 173 (available from the New Zealand Electronic Text Collection, Victoria University of Wellington Library).
Research conducted by Max Kerr
Regimental no. 22683
5 January 1892 – 17 June 1917
William BOWDEN, usually known as Will or by his nickname Smiler, born in Wellington in 1892, was the eighth child of Martha Pope and Samuel Bowden.
In 1875, Martha had married John Igoe, in Whanganui. He was a seaman but frequently before the court charged with being an idle and disorderly person and the relationship did not last. In 1884, Samuel Bowden told a magistrate the he had been living with Mrs Igoe for seven years (since 1877) and would marry her if he could. It seems that this was not possible until after the death of John Igoe in 1909. Samuel and Martha were then free to marry, which they did in 1915.
After the birth in Whanganui of Martha and Samuel’s son, Thomas Samuel or Tom, in 1879, the family moved to Wellington. There, Martha and Samuel had six daughters before the birth of their second son, Will, in 1894. Four more daughters were born during the next seven years, a total of 12 births over a period of 22 years.
When Will was born in 1892 the family was living in Walter Street, Te Aro, close to the central city. The 1898-99 Wises Directory recorded Samuel’s address as Mitchelltown, although the family may have moved there earlier as Will attended the Mitchelltown school. In the 1905–06 electoral roll Samuel gave his address as 50 Aro Street, (on part of the site of what is now Aro Park), and the family then moved around the corner into Epuni Street, sometimes at number 33 and sometimes at 31. In the directories and electoral rolls throughout this period, Samuel gave his occupation as cook. It is not certain where he worked throughout this period, although the fact that he was enrolled on the Seamen’s Roll for Wellington Central in 1911 indicates that some of his work was on the coastal vessel ss Putaki.
On 30 April 1912, when he was 20, Will married Irish-born Catherine Walsh, 25. The marriage took place at the Sacred Heart Basilica in Wellington, presumably after Will had been received into the Catholic church. At the time, Will’s occupation was driver, although he was described as a labourer four years later when he enlisted to serve with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force. The couple began their married life living with Will’s parents in Epuni Street. Their first child, Catherine May was born in 1913, and their second, Billie Norah Muriel, in late 1916, several months after Will had left to serve on the Western Front. After giving Catherine’s name to their first child, the couple had been planning to give Will’s name to their next child, had it been a boy. Although it wasn’t, she was given the name of Billie just the same, to carry Will’s name into the next generation. (Information contributed by Andrea Warn (Will’s great grand-daughter) taken from https://www.nzwargraves.org.nz/user-story-1406286179 , accessed on 15 July 2017.)
When Will enlisted with the Army on 11 May 1916, the family had moved to Broadway Terrace (since re-named Torrens Terrace), running off Webb Street in Te Aro. He was then 23. His personnel file describes him as having a fresh complexion, with light brown hair and blue eyes, five feet six inches tall and weighing nine stone 11 pounds, roughly 62 kilograms. It is probably no coincidence that Will’s brother Tom, then 37, enlisted just four days later, on 15 May 1916. Tom had married Beatrice Maude Lines in 1899 and with four children, could perhaps have been regarded as a lower priority for recruitment. It seems likely, however, that the brothers were among those who thought that serving overseas would be an adventure. As it turned out, they embarked on separate ships several weeks apart, Will on the Aparima as part of the 16th Reinforcements leaving on 19 August 1916, and Tom on 29 September on the Pakeha, part of the 17th Reinforcements.
Will disembarked at Devonport, near the city of Plymouth, England, on 25 October 1916. With his fellow recruits, he was despatched to Sling Camp in Wiltshire for further training before being sent to France. His passage to France was delayed, however, by two spells in hospital attached to the New Zealand camp at Codford, the first time to treat a venereal infection and the second to deal with a case of mumps.
He was eventually transferred to the newly-formed 3rd Battalion, Wellington Regiment and posted to 7 Company at the beginning of April 1917. While it was being set up, the battalion was based at Codford and undertook its training on the Salisbury Plain. The unit received orders on 25 May to begin the move to France. As part of the 3rd Battalion, Will arrived in France in time to see the launch of the battle for Messines Ridge. The battalion did not take an active role in the battle but was assigned to repair and reconstruction of the Wulverghem–Messines Road immediately after the attack had been launched on 7 June.
One week later, on 14 June, the 3rd Battalion received what the official history described as ‘its real baptism of trench warfare.’[i] The battalion initially came under continuous shelling but remained in the line for eight days, active in patrolling. The battalion was eventually relieved in the trenches by 3rd Otago on the night of 22 June and went back to rest billets in Nieppe, a village in northern France close to the Belgian border, to remain there until the end of the first week of July.
Will was killed in the middle of that period of patrolling, on 17 June 1917, at the age of 25. He was buried in the Motor Car Corner Cemetery, so named because the corner marked the point beyond which military cars were not permitted to proceed towards the front. The cemetery is less than 3 kilometres north of Armentières (in France) but is located in the Hainaut area of Belgium, 17 kilometres south of Ypres. Will is one of 82 NZ casualties (out of a total of 126 casualties) buried in this location.
He would have been upset at how Catherine found out about his death. She went to collect his war pay at the Wellington Post Office, only to be told by the cashier: ‘We don’t pay out for dead men’. The official notification by telegram was still on its way. (Andrea Warn information as above)
Will’s brother Tom had meanwhile left England for France in December 1916, and was posted to the 1st Battalion Canterbury Infantry Regiment. At the end of the war he returned to Wellington. His wife Beatrice died in 1920, when she was 40. Tom remarried in 1925, to Minnie Small, and continued living and working in Wellington until he died, aged 61, in 1941.
On 10 July 1917, the wife of his brother Tom published a notice in the Evening Post Roll of Honour:
BOWDEN. Killed in action somewhere in France, on the 17th June, 1917, William Richard Higgs (Smiler), youngest son of Mr and Mrs H Bowden, Epuni-street; aged 24 years.
Inserted by his loving sister-in-law, B M Bowden, and nieces, 10 Yule Street Kilbirnie, and W J Williamson
Two years on, there was a memorial notice from Will’s parents and another from his wife. The one from his parents included the lines:
Your cheery, sunny countenance
Will not from memory fade;
For we see you in the photo
In the home you died to save.
And when our hearts are sore for you,
We seem to hear you say,
‘Break not your heart, dear mother,
We will meet on that Eternal Day.’
Samuel Richard Higgs Bowden died at the end of January 1924, at the age of 75. He was buried in Karori Cemetery, joining three of his daughters and Tom's wife who had predeceased him, in 1906, 1914, 1917 and 1920. The grave used to have a wooden fence marking its location in the first Anglican section of the cemetery, but no memorial.
[i] The Wellington Regiment (NZEF) 1914–1918, W H Cunningham, C A L Treadwell and K S Hanna, Fergusson and Osborne, 1928 p 173 (available from the New Zealand Electronic Text Collection, Victoria University of Wellington Library).
Research conducted by Max Kerr