Alfred Fowler was born in the village of Waddesdon in Buckinghamshire on Wednesday, 18th October 1876 and baptised in the church of St Michael and All Angels on Monday, 22nd January 1877. He was the second child and first son born to John Fowler and Mary Creed who had seven children who were, Edith, Alfred, Alice, Eli, Frederick, Violet and Lucy. Eli died in 1882 aged just one and his father John died in 1904 aged fifty-three.

Alfred had a variety of jobs in a wide range of locations over the years beginning as a “Labourer” after he left school before appearing on the 1891 Census, living in Eastleigh in Hampshire and working for the Railways. Ten years later he had moved to London where he had found work as a “Musician” in a theatre. It was when he moved to London that he came into contact with his cousin Margaret Fowler, also from Waddesdon, and they soon became sweethearts. They returned to Waddesdon in 1911 and were married before they settled at 17 Winifred Street in Apsley where Alfred had come to work.

On the outbreak of war Alfred was above the enlistment age but when the Military Services Act was passed in May 1916, the upper age was increased to forty-one and included married men previously exempt. This made Alfred eligible for service and in June 1916 he attested in Hemel Hempstead and joined the Colours.

By this time volunteers could no longer express a preference for a regiment and instead were assigned to a Training Battalion before being posted to the Frontline. It is not known when Alfred went to France, but it is likely to have been in early 1917 when he was posted to the 7th Battalion Northamptonshire Regiment.

If he arrived before April he would have been in action at Vimy Ridge, but he was certainly at the Front when the 7th Battalion fought in the Battle of Messines in June 1917. Starting on the 7th, the Battalion moved into position and immediately came under very heavy German shelling which caused a few causalities, including the Commanding Officer who was “…struck over the heart by a piece of shell and severely bruised”. The following day at 2.30am, Alfred and his comrades attacked and successfully gained enemy ground during the day. At 10pm however, they came under a significant barrage from the Germans as they attempted a counter-attack and it was during this action that Alfred was fatally wounded. Along with nineteen other men, he was taken down the line to No.4 Light Field Ambulance for treatment, but this proved to be futile. He succumbed to his wounds shortly after arriving.

Alfred Died of Wounds on Friday, 8th June 1917. His death was reported in the Hemel Gazette at the end of the month and a year later his wife Maggie, placed an “In Memoriam” notice in the paper to commemorate her dead husband.

Just a month after placing the notice Maggie was killed as a result of an accident, when she crashed into a bridge at the bottom of a hill, after the brakes had failed on the bicycle she was riding. Her family took her body home to Waddesdon where she was buried on the 3rd August in the churchyard of St Michael’s and All Angels.

Alfred was commemorated on the War Memorial plaque in St Mary’s Church, in Apsley End and on Waddesdon village War Memorial just across the road from Maggie’s grave. At least five of their cousins are also commemorated on the village memorial.

Alfred is Remembered with Honour in Dickebusch New Military Cemetery Extension, West-Vlaanderen, Belgium, where he is interred in Grave III. C. 21.

He was 40 years old when he died.

Alfred was eligible for the British War Medal and the Allied Victory Medal.