Private George Humphrey Cowled, 36th Battalion, AIF
Australian War MemorialGeorge Cowled was born in 1890 to Charles and Margaret Cowled of Illabo, New South Wales. He was born in Junee, and attended school in Illabo before going on to work as a farmer like his father.
Cowled enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in March 1916. He underwent a period of training in Australia before leaving for active service overseas with reinforcements to the 36th Battalion in September 1916.
Private Cowled spent the bitterly cold winter of 1916 and 1917 in England training at Tidworth near the Salisbury Plain. He finally joined his battalion in France in late March 1917.
A month after joining his battalion, Private Cowled entered the front line at Le Touquet. Four hours after the 36th Battalion took over the front line, the men came under a heavy German artillery bombardment.
A German raiding party launched an attack which was stopped by Australian artillery. After two and a half hours, the enemy barrage eased, leaving behind five killed and 15 wounded.
One of those killed was Private George Cowled. He had been at the front for just one month.
His remains were collected and buried in a row with the other four men killed in the bombardment.
The chaplain who conducted the funeral service wrote to Cowled’s parents in Australia to say, “on behalf of the officers and men of the battalion, as well as my own, I wish to express … sincerest sympathy in your sad loss … it fell to my lot to conduct his funeral service, and [I] can assure you that his body was reverently laid to rest in a little cemetery known as the ‘London Rifle Brigade Cemetery’.”
Private George Cowled’s epitaph reads, “For King and Country he died; in God and in Peace he lives”.
He was 26 years old.
Meleah Hampton, Historian, Military History Section
Image: London Rifle Brigade Cemetery, Belgium.
