William Harvard Bowsher was born in Islington, Middlesex on Tuesday, 8th July 1890 and baptised the following month on Sunday, 3rd August at Holy Trinity church in Hoxton. He was the eldest of four sons born to William Thomas Bowsher and Mary Jane Culpitt and his three younger brothers were: George Edward, Leonard Henry and Frederick. William and Mary had a fifth child which died in infancy and which research has failed to identify. The three oldest boys fought in the Great War and Leonard was killed in August 1917, eleven months after William. Leonard’s biography also appears on this site.

When William was born his family lived at 30 Arlington Street, Islington and his father, William worked for a stationery company as a ‘Machine Ruler’. It was his father’s occupation which brought the Bowsher family to Nash Mills near Kings Langley, when he came to work for John Dickinson & Co. Limited in 1894.

In 1897 misfortune overtook the Bowsher family when William’s father William, died suddenly aged only thirty-nine. His death left his widow Mary Jane to raise the four young boys, so she found a job with Dickinsons as a ‘Hand Envelope Folder’. This was work that she was able to do from home, presumably due to some benevolence on the part of her employer, and this meant she could also look after the children. By 1901 her brother Harvard had also moved to Nash Mills to work for Dickinsons and was living with Mary and the boys and no doubt helping to raise his nephews.

By 1911, Mary aged forty-nine was a ‘Chapel Caretaker’ and by now all four of her sons and her brother were working with John Dickinson & Co. Limited at Apsley Mills. Twenty-year-old William was a ‘Light Porter’ in the factory.

William enlisted under the ‘Group Scheme’ popularly known as the ‘Derby Scheme’ after Edward Stanley the 17th Lord Derby who in October 1915 was appointed Director-General of Recruiting.

In early 1915 enlistments had averaged 100,000 men per month, but this was unsustainable and to try and keep the numbers up the upper age limit was raised from 38 to 40 in May 1915. It quickly became clear however, that voluntary recruitment was not going to provide the numbers of men required. The government therefore passed the ‘National Registration Act’ on the 15th July 1915 as a step towards stimulating recruitment and to discover how many men between the ages of 15 and 65 were engaged in each trade. All those in this age range who were not already in the military were obliged to register, giving details of their employment. The results of this census became available by mid-September 1915: it showed there were almost 5 million males of military age who were not in the forces, of which 1.6m were in the “starred” (protected, high or scarce skill) jobs.

Under the ‘Derby Scheme’ men aged 18 to 40 were informed that they could continue to enlist voluntarily or attest with an obligation to come if called up later on. However, all voluntary enlistment ceased on the 15th December 1915 and all new recruits were in effect conscripted from that point onwards.

Men who attested under the Derby Scheme, and who were accepted for service but chose to defer it, were categorised as “Class A”. Those who agreed to immediate service were “Class B”. Class ‘A’ men were paid a day’s army pay for the day they attested, given a grey armband with a red crown as a sign that they had volunteered and were officially transferred into Section B Army Reserve. They were sent back to their homes and jobs until they were called up. Each man was also classified as married or single status and into 23 groups according to their age. This determined when they would be called up and mobilised.

For William as a single man born in 1890 this, meant his call up was notified in January 1916 and he was mobilised a month later to begin training. He had enlisted with the Bedfordshire Regiment but on mobilisation was transferred to the 4th (Denbighshire) Battalion Royal Welsh Fusiliers and went to France in July 1916. The 4th Battalion was designated a ‘Pioneer’ unit and joined the 47th (London) Division near Albert on the 1st September 1916.

Fifteen days later William went into action for the first time in the Battle of Flers-Courcelette, historically significant for the use of the newly invented tank for the first time. On the 15th September he took part in the capture of High Wood but unfortunately did not survive the assault.

He was listed missing and it would be a year until he was officially declared killed in action on Friday, 15th September 1916.

A brief report of his death and that of his brother Leonard appeared in the Hemel Gazette in September 1917.

Just a week later a letter from his C.O. 2nd Lieutenant D.J. Williams was published in the Gazette along with pictures of both William and his younger brother Leonard.

He is commemorated on the John Dickinson & Co. Limited war memorial in Apsley.

William is Remembered with Honour on the Thiepval Memorial, Somme, France, Pier and Face 4 A.

He was 26 years old when he died

William was entitled to the British War Medal and the Allied Victory Medal.