|
|
This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this site you agree to accept cookies.
If you enjoy this site please consider making a donation.
Site Home
Help & FAQs
Features
Submissions
Information
Advertisements
World War 1 One ww1 wwII greatwar great 1914 1918 first battalion regiment
2nd Lt. Thomas Richmond Rowell
British Army Machine Gun Corps
from:Burnley
My grandfather, Thomas Richmond Rowell, was in the first attack at Thiepval on the 1st of July 1916, aged 19. He was wounded twice by a german machine gun and spent some hours in no-man's land. Fortunately his mother had given him a bottle of iodine which he poured over his wounds. The surgeon later told him this certainly saved his legs and probably his life. He made a full recovery and died in 1974. This information came from my mother and although true I cannot verify all the facts as he would never speak to me about it, although I do have his picture as an officer in the Lancashire Fusiliers.
After the war he joined the colonial civil service in Hong Kong and became Director of Education but was sent on leave shortly before the surrender of Hong Kong and evacuated to Australia. He left there in 1942 in the last rubber boat to leave Malaya before It's surrender. Bound for Britain the ship was torpedoed off Halifax but being full of rubber it took a long time to sink and everyone was picked up. My mother worked as acipher clerk at Bletchley Park. I can follow his life after the war but information on his service record is sketchy. Can anyone help please?
Editors Note: Thomas Richmond Rowell is listed as having served as a Private in the Liverpool Regiment then commissioned into the Machine Gun Corps.
Related Content:
Can you help us to add to our records?
The names and stories on this website have been submitted by their relatives and friends. If your relations are not listed please add their names so that others can read about them
Did your relative live through the Great War? Do you have any photos, newspaper clippings, postcards or letters from that period? Have you researched the names on your local or war memorial?
If so please let us know.
Do you know the location of a Great War "Roll of Honour?"We are very keen to track down these often forgotten documents and obtain photographs and transcriptions of the names recorded so that they will be available for all to remember.
Help us to build a database of information on those who served both at home and abroad so that future generations may learn of their sacrifice.
Celebrate your own Family History
Celebrate by honouring members of your family who served in the Great War both in the forces and at home. We love to hear about the soldiers, but also remember the many who served in support roles, nurses, doctors, land army, muntions workers etc.
Please use our Family History resources to find out more about your relatives. Then please send in a short article, with a photo if possible, so that they can be remembered on these pages.
The free section of The Wartime Memories Project is run by volunteers.
This website is paid for out of our own pockets, library subscriptions and from donations made by visitors. The popularity of the site means that it is far exceeding available resources and we currently have a huge backlog of submissions.
If you are enjoying the site, please consider making a donation, however small to help with the costs of keeping the site running.
Hosted by:
The Wartime Memories Project Website
is archived for preservation by the British Library
Copyright MCMXCIX - MMXXIV
- All Rights Reserved -We do not permit the use of any content from this website for the training of LLMs or for use in Generative AI, it also may not be scraped for the purpose of creating other websites.
