PRIVATE 5199 JOHN CHRISTOPHER BOWKER, 2/6TH BATTALION WEST RIDING (DUKE OF WELLINGTONS) REGIMENT.


PRIVATE 5199 JOHN CHRISTOPHER BOWKER, 2/6TH BATTALION WEST RIDING (DUKE OF WELLINGTONS) REGIMENT. KILLED IN ACTION 20TH FEBRUARY 1917 AGED 28


The Bowker family moved from Bradford to Ilkley in the years immediately prior to the beginning of the First World War and took up residence in a terraced house at 6 Cunliffe Road. Father, Edmund, was a travelling salesman with a company of dye manufacturers whilst his wife, Jenny, looked after the family home. Johnny Bowker, their only son, worked as a carter for a local grocers shop.


On the 1st March 1916 Johnny decided to enlist into the army and travelled to Halifax to join the West Riding Regiment. Not immediately required by the battalion he was sent home to await mobilisation on the 28th of the month.Throughout 1916 Johnny trained with the battalion at various camps in England, although, it is likely that by December he would have been able to enjoy some of the festive season at home with his family.

The new year saw the battalion ready for active service and on 6th of February landed in France. The high casualty rate of the Somme battles in 1916 had left the British Expeditionary Force woefully short of men and there was little opportunity for acclimatisation for trained but inexperienced battalions like the 2/6th. Less than two weeks after arriving in France the battalion was manning the front line near to the village of Mailly Maillet on the Somme Sector. The battalion war diary dolefully reports that between the 17th and 21st February the battalion suffered 4 other ranks killed. One of those casualties was 28 year old Private John Christopher Bowker. In eleven months of service he had spent less than two weeks in France and only three days in the trenches. Johnny's body was recovered from the battlefield and buried in a cemetery behind the front line.

Today Johnny Bowker lies in the little cemetery at Wagon Road and is remembered on our war memorial in Ilkley. ( Photograph courtesy James Cooper)


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