Forename: John
Surname: Bowen
Rank: Private
Regiment: Gloucestershire Regiment
Institution: St Paul’s Practising School
John Bowen was born in 1887 in Alstone, Cheltenham.
He was an army reservist who originally enlisted as a Private in the 1st Battalion Gloucestershire Regiment in July 1904. As such he was amongst the first soldiers sent to France on 13 August 1914. He was wounded in the early years of the war at Mons but continued to fight until he was mortally wounded by shellfire at Les Brebis on 1 June 1916. He is buried at Maroc British Cemetery. He left three children and a wife, Ada, whose cousin was David Hawling, another ex-Practising School pupil who died at the Battle of Loos.