Older volunteer fell in Belgium

CHARLES Cowen was born at Gardeners Bay in the Port Cygnet municipality in August 1883, one of 10 children of Richard and Emma Cowen.

He had attended the Gardners Bay State School with his brothers and sisters, and, following the family tradition, he became a mill hand and contractor after leaving school.

In April, 1906, he married the patriotically named Brittania (better known as Brightie) Pregnell and together they had six children.

By 1916 the number of men volunteering for the AIF had dropped and married men were being encouraged to enlist.

On July 4, 1916, just three months after the birth of his youngest child, Charles enlisted with Tasmania’s own 40th Battalion, aged nearly 33.

He arrived in England in December that year and transferred to France on April 1917.

On the evening of July 23, 1917, near Messines in Belgium, Charles and other men of the 5th Platoon were cable digging at night as part of a working party.

The party was fired on and Charles was hit in the back by a machine gun bullet as he left the trench. He was killed instantly.

He was later buried in the Kandahar Farm Cemetery, between Ypres and Armentieres in Belgium.

Private Charles Watkin Cowen is remembered at tree 391 on the Soldiers’ Memorial Avenue and on the honour board at the Hobart Town Hall.