JAMES Edwin Bowater

The Upton on Severn News reported that E.B. James, the youngest son of Mr and Mrs F.W. James of Upton on Severn was one of the first to respond to the call of his country and, with two of his fellow school teachers in Smethwick, joined the 8th Battalion of the Warwickshire Regiment.  After training, he and his two companions were drafted to France in March 1915.  In March 1916, he received his first leave, was married and spent a few days with his parents, before returning to France.  In his last letter received by his parents and dated June 23rd – just before the big offensive – he wrote: ‘We do not know what is happening to us, though we’ll all have to do our share when things begin to move.  There is a splendid spirit among the men; they will do anything to knock another winter campaign on the head, and all seem anxious to get some sort of a decision to the unsatisfactory state of affairs.  One thing, we are all pretty confident of making a good show.  We liked to predict the end of the war since its beginning, and have now found out it’s a big problem to tackle.  Bar doing our best and waiting, we are helpless…’ He concluded by asking his parents not to worry if they did not get news from him as often as usual.

On Saturday morning, E.B. James’s widow received the following letter from one of his two brothers’ in arms:
‘I have to give you the saddest of all tidings.  Edwin was killed in action at about 7.45 on the morning of July 1st.  What can I say to comfort you?  If I consider what he was to me, then I know in a small measure what he was to you!  He was straight and clean in all matters.  He was brave, generous and true.  Of him, Charles Kingsley would have written his epitaph, “Here lieth the flower and pattern of all true soldiers.” I cannot write more.  May god comfort you.
Your sincere friend
“Sammy”
(A R Hodgetts).’

Mr James also received the following letter:
‘Dear Mr James,
I am deeply grieved to inform you that your son was killed in action on the morning of July 1st.  He died in one of the most gallant and splendid charges that has ever been made.  His friends, among whom I was proud to be considered, are nearly all wounded or killed, and so this most painful duty devolves upon me.  My feelings are too deep to set down here.  In “Jimmie”, as we called him, we have lost a cheery comrade and a gallant gentleman.  I hope this letter will in some small degree convey to you and to all those who held him dear our heartfelt sympathy.
Yours very sincerely,
H C Davies.
PS. If there is anything I can do in any way to help you, I will do it to the best of my ability for Jimmie’s sake.’

The Upton on Severn News also reported that Lance Corporal James was an old Hanley Castle Grammar School boy, and during his time there captained both the Football and Cricket teams, and was exceedingly popular with all with whom he came into contact…’

(The ‘big offensive’, referred to above was, of course, the Battle of the Somme which began at 7.30 am on 1st July 1916 and was to last throughout the summer and autumn of 1916.  Lance Corporal James survived for just a quarter of an hour and was one of 57,000 British casualties, 19,000 of them killed, on that first day of the battle.)

A photograph of Lance Corporal E.B. James of Upton can be found in Berrow’s Worcester Journal Supplement, Saturday 27th October 1917, available at Worcestershire Archives.

Edwin James has no known grave, the photograph available shows his name on Thiepval Memorial.