Monday 18 January 2010

114641 Pioneer Abel Bowtell, RE

114641 Pioneer Abel Bowtell of the 3rd Labour Battalion, Royal Engineers, died on the 18th January 1916; probably as a result of sickness or disease. He was born in the pretty Essex village of Little Dunmow and was living in Chipping Ongar when Britain went to war with Germany. He enlisted in London.

Abel's medal index card indicates that he arrived in France on 25th August 1915. My data for Royal Engineers army numbers is patchy and so I am not able to estimate his likely joining date. He was, however, 44 years old when he died and it's conceivable that he had prior military experience. He is buried in Henu Churchyard in France, one of 17 identified casualties from the First World War.

He was the son of John and Ann Bowtell and appears on the 1891 census as an eighteen-year-old agricultural labourer living at Grange Lane, Little Dunmow. He had siblings as well. Ellen and Emma Bowtell are recorded as being five years old and three years old respectively, on the 1881 census, whilst the 1891 census notes Benjamin Bowtell (aged ten). I have been unable to find Abel on the 1901 census.

At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, WE WILL REMEMBER THEM.

Sources:

Ancestry.co.uk (MIC, 1881 and 1891 census)
Army Ancestry
Army Service Numbers 1881-1918
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
Soldiers Died in The Great War

No comments:

Naval & Military Press