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Sgt. Albert Edward Rowe
British Army 28th Brigade, 122nd Howitzer Battery Royal Field Artillery
from:Barrack Street, Dundalk, Ireland
Bertie Rowe was born in Ramsgate in Kent. He served with the Royal Field Artillery in the British Army. While stationed in Tipperary. he married a local woman Mary Ladrigan. They moved to live first at the Curragh Camp, Kildare and later to the British Army Barracks in Dundalk where the lived with his family in Barton Cottages, Barrack Street, Dundalk.
Now a Battery Sergant with the 122nd Howitzer Battery of the Royal Field Artillery, he left with his Battery to join the British Expeditionary Force on 14 August 1914 at the outbreak of the Great War. They embarked from the docks in Belfast. He saw action at Le Cateaux in August 1914 and was awarded a Mons Medal for his service.
His daughter recollected that he was a 'spotter' for the battery. He fought at Ypres and Paschendale and possible the Somme. He was injured by shrapnel twice in April 1917 possible during the Battle of Arras and was cared for by the Canadian Field Hospital medics. He returned to recuperate in Wharnfield Hospitall, Sheffield and later in Dublin Castle in 1917.
He also contracted Trench Nephritis from lying about in wet ground. Due to his failing health he was retired from the Army and took up work on the Great Northern Railway in Dundalk as part of the Breakdown Gang. He died in his 40s from TB in 1925. His wife was was denied a Widow's pension. His wife Mary died of a heart attack in her 40's leaving 4 children. Relatives in Ramsgate and Tipperary were unable to take in the children. As a result the four Rowe children were dispersed between domestic service, the Merchant Navy, The Royal Drummond Orphanage in Bray and St. Brigid's Asylum in Ardee, County Louth. He was known as Whistler Rowe and was a keen gardener.
