On 15 January 1921, Gladys Gower, of Norwich, England, wrote to Base Records in Melbourne asking about the whereabouts of her husband, Ernest, who had left England some 18 months earlier. She had been unable to communicate with him, “to remind him of his obligation over here as he has left me unprovided for.”
Gower met Gladys after being invalided from France to England in March 1917 with bronchitis. He recuperated at the Norfolk War Hospital in Gladys’s home city of Norwich, not leaving hospital until June, when he was sent to Perham Down, near Salisbury, several hours away. The date of their marriage is unknown, but it happened before August 1917, when he updated his next-of-kin in his military records. Within days he returned to France.
Gladys, in her 1921 letter, stated the address she had for Gower was the Globe Hotel in Rockhampton. This matched his most recent address held by Base Records, from his application for a War Gratuity.
Gower had been born in Wales but was living in Rockhampton before he enlisted in May 1915. He worked for the railways and had been a local soccer player. He was listed as playing for the Rockhampton representative team in a game against a team from Gracemere by the Morning Bulletin of 3 May 1913. Reporting of soccer in Rockhampton was rare in the era, and he was not reported as playing again until June 1915, when he turned out for an AIF Military team in a 2-all draw against Brisbane team Corinthians.
Gower was allocated to the 9th Battalion and departed Australia in August. It is uncertain what happened next, as Gower’s military record, like many who were supposed to arrive in Gallipoli in late 1915, contain little to no information about the period. It is unknown whether the lack of information was due to the evacuation of the peninsula in December. His later obituary, however, states he fought in Gallipoli and France.
He arrived in France in 1916, where he fought until being wounded in August but was not evacuated. He was transferred to the 49th Battalion, and later that year was promoted to Sergeant-Major. Gower was hospitalised again with bronchitis in March 1917, likely leading to his meeting with Gladys. He was promoted again, this time to 2nd Lieutenant, by the end of the year. Gower remained in France until early 1918, when he was sent back to England to be attached to the 13th Training Battalion at Codford. His records state in February he “attended a course of instruction in defensive measures against gas” which occurred on the Isle of Wight.
He returned to France in August 1918, where he spent the rest of the war between his unit and further training. Gower did not return to England until January 1919. He spent much of 1919 in Tidworth with the AIF before returning to Australia November 1919 – without Gladys. There is no reason given in his records as to why Gladys did not go to Australia with him, as was common for wives of Australian soldiers who married in England during the war.
On returning to Rockhampton, Gower worked again for the railways. He was later transferred to Mackay. It was here he died in February 1927. According to Gower’s obituary, which appeared in Mackay’s Daily Mercury newspaper on 26 February, he had suffered from the effects of gas since the war. It is unknown whether the gas was responsible for the bronchitis he had suffered in 1917.
Gower’s obituary also stated he was single when he died, with no known relatives in Australia.