The life and death of Horace Bowtell by Stephen Nunn

Throughout the centuries, surnames have evolved and have been corrupted, often leading to astonishing versions of the original spelling. Take, for example, that of ‘Bowtell’.

This is sometimes recorded as ‘Boutell’, or even ‘Boutwell’. You could excuse these variations occurring in medieval times, during the seventeen, eighteenth, or even nineteenth centuries, but you would think that they would have got it right by the time of the First World War.

However, in the case of Maldon born Horace Charles Bowtell, this was clearly not the case.

Correctly Christened ‘Bowtell’ in the January of 1898, Horace was the son of Charles Alfred Smith Bowtell and Jessie Ada (née Mead).

By 1901 the three year old was living with his parents (father by profession a painter) and younger brother, Frederick Arthur Bowtell (b.1899), at 15 Spital Road, part of a terrace of cottages near today’s ‘Tolleyshop’.

Horace’s father died young in 1905 and so Horace was brought up by his widowed mother with support from her parents, James and Hannah Mead, who lived just round the corner at 69 Mount Pleasant, where he was staying when the Census was taken in 1911.

When the Great War, that ill-termed “war to end all wars”, turned the world upside down, Horace gave his address as simply “Heybridge”.

Like many other local lads he had signed up to do his bit for King and Country and enlisted at Maldon.

He initially served in the Royal Army Service Corps, as Private M/282812 – the “M” indicating he was a driver of “Mechanical Transport”. However, in 1917, he transferred to a most unlikely (for an Essex boy that is) regiment – the South Wales Borderers and made his way out to France.

Allocated to the 6th Pioneer Battalion, along with his colleagues, he was fully employed in repairing communications, often in the most difficult of conditions and under heavy fire.

Throughout the summer and autumn of 1918 the war was on a knife edge and could have tipped either way.

On the 21st October 1918, Horace Bowtell was with his Battalion at Rolleghem, in West Flanders, Belgium.

Their brief was to build bridges, fill in craters and clear obstructions - generally making the battle scarred roads reasonably fit for pursuing forces.

Shell fire was a constant hazard and his luck ran out on the 22nd.

According to the records of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, five men of the 6th Battalion were killed that day and were buried at the evacuation hospital cemetery at Lijssenthoek, just outside of Ypres.

They were Lance/Corporal I. Prince (29040), Privates F. Thomas (39232), R. McCollom (42715), A.E. Heap (38574) and our 20 year old Maldon lad, H.C. Bowtell (45796). It is likely that the soldiers were in a cluster, or a repair party, hit by a shell and who, as a result, succumbed to their wounds.

Today, they lie in the peaceful, carefully manicured site, standing to attention in a headstone row and somehow frozen together in time.

Meanwhile, here at home in Maldon, Jessie Bowtell received a small pension payment in lieu of one of her sons and received two medals from the King; “in grateful remembrance”.

Not much for a life, but how must she have felt when, in attempting to recognise his sacrifice, the Heybridge war memorial was etched with his name as “Boutell H.C.”, the Maldon Town cross as “Boutwell. Horace C.” and two separate trees in the Promenade’s Avenue of Remembrance were dedicated to “Boutwell” (tree 25) and “Boutell” (tree 83).

I am sure that the understandably confused and overwhelmed officials of the time meant well, but it was probably like going to one of those funerals where the vicar clearly didn’t know the deceased and kept mispronouncing his name – except this was much more permanent and has come down to us today.

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Jessie (sometimes listed as living at 79 Cross Road) died in 1936, Horace’s younger brother, Frederick, as recently as 1979.

Fast forward to 2022 and a pair of mint, unused medals, complete with original packaging addressed to; “Mrs. J.A. Bowtell, 15 Spital Road, Maldon”, appeared at an East Anglian auction house with a meagre reserve of £60.

In the event £80 secured them and they are now in my temporary custodianship, along with the medals of other Maldon and Heybridge casualties – Clifford Burnes, Herbert Humphreys, Charles Old, Edward Payne and Ernest Ward amongst them.

A select company of young men who, in the words of the Maldon Town Memorial; “endured hardness, faced danger and finally passed out of sight of men, by the path of duty and self sacrifice, giving up their own lives, that others might live in freedom”.

So next time you are near the memorial, have a look for “Boutwell. Horace C.”, but please remember him as “Bowtell” and see to it that; his correct name is not forgotten.