Profile

BOWIE, Robert Ross
(Service number 7/920)

Major R R Bowie — From" "South Canterbury Roll of Honour", published 1916 by the South Canterbury Caledonian Society. (South Canterbury Museum 17/15)

Waimataitai School War Memorial, pictured in 2007 — (South Canterbury Museum )

Chalmers Church memorial plaque, photographed in 2010 — South Canterbury Museum 2013/155.28 (South Canterbury Museum )

Timaru Boys High School Memorial Library plaque (1914-1918), pictured in 2007 — (South Canterbury Museum )

Aliases
First Rank	Major	Last Rank	Major

Birth

Date	NZBMD 13 April 1874; Army Records 12 April 1875	Place of Birth	Timaru, New Zealand

Enlistment Information

Date	14 December 1914	Age	40
Address at Enlistment	83 Wai-iti Rd, Timaru
Occupation	Merchant
Previous Military Experience	8th (South Canterbury) Mounted Rifles. Territorials.
Marital Status	Married
Next of Kin	Mrs Elizabeth Bowie(Wife) Waika [Wai-iti?] Road, Timaru.
Religion	Presbyterian
Medical Information	5 foot 9 inches. 154 lb weight. Fair complexion, Grey eyes. Brown hair. Good eyesight and hearing.Medical examination gave a good health report

Military Service

Served with	NZ Armed Forces	Served in	Army
Military District

Embarkation Information

Body on Embarkation	4th Reinforcements
Unit, Squadron, or Ship	Canterbury Mounted Rifles
Date	17 April 1915
Transport	Willochra or Knight Templar or Waitomo
Embarked From	Wellington, New Zealand	Destination	Suez, Egypt

Other Units Served With
Last Unit Served With

Military Awards

Campaigns	Eygptian 1915
Service Medals	1914-1915 Star, British War Medal & Victory Medal.
Military Awards

Award Circumstances and Date

No information

Prisoner of War Information

Date of Capture
Where Captured and by Whom
Actions Prior to Capture
PoW Serial Number
PoW Camps
Days Interned
Liberation Date

Discharge

Date		Reason

Hospitals, Wounds, Diseases and Illnesses

17/6/1915 - Admitted to hospital with dysentry. Became dangerously ill.

Post-war Occupations

Death

Date	10 July 1915	Age	42
Place of Death	No.1 Hospital, Heliopolis, Cairo, Egypt
Cause	Died of dysentery
Notices
Memorial or Cemetery	Cairo War Memorial Cemetery, Egypt
Memorial Reference	B. 323
New Zealand Memorials	On Memorial wall, Timaru; Timaru Boys High School War Memorial (Library); Waimataitai School War Memorial; South Canterbury Savage Club Roll of Honour

Biographical Notes

Son of Robert and Julia Ann Bowie (nee Johnson). Robert's siblings were Annie, Edith Withers, John Hunter, Euphemia, Julia Murray, and William Alexander.

Robert married Elizabeth Thompson in Oamaru on 12 April 1900. Their children, all born in Timaru were Patricia Mary (b.1900), Andrew Robert Michael 'Mick' (b.1901), Doris May (b.1905), Wanaka Elizabeth 'Wannie' (b.1907), Peggy (b.1909), and Jean (b.1913).

Sources

Auckland War Memorial Museum Cenotaph Database (September 2013); Archives New Zealand Military Personnel file (November 2014); SCRoll web submission by L Bowie, 26 April 2020; SCRoll web submission by D Zam, 29 December 2020

External Links

Researched and Written by

Janette Clarke, SC branch NZSG

Currently Assigned to

Not assigned.

Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License unless otherwise stated.

Tell us more

Do you have information that could be added to this story? Or related images that you are happy to share? Submit them here!