Pauline Priano has supplied the following:-
John Cowan was born 1898 at Gateshead, County Durham, the eldest of 2 sons born to John Robert Cowan, native of Scarborough, Yorkshire, born 1866 and Caroline Sproat born 1867 at Morpeth, Northumberland. The couple met at Morpeth whilst John Robert was working as a stonemason/bricklayer either for or alongside Caroline’s father, during the renovations of a church. They were married at Morpeth in 1894 and moved to 3, Allhusen Terrace, Sunderland Road, Gateshead.
John’s father joined the Army, July 8th 1886, aged 21 years and was assigned as Sapper 21153 to the 5th Coy Royal Engineers. Although he spent time at home in reserve, over a period of almost 15 years, he did serve in Gibraltar, Hong Kong and South Africa. He was recalled to serve in South Africa in 1900, whilst there his skills as a master bricklayer were put to good use building blockhouses which protected the railway line from Johannesburg to the Cape. Sapper 21153 John Robert Cowan died June 17th 1901 at Harrismith, Free State, South Africa of typhoid fever and was interred at Harrismith, his grave marked by a metal cross, he was 35 years old. The two storey blockhouses that he helped construct still exist to this day, one of which has been incorporated within the Botanical Gardens and declared a national monument. He had departed whilst his wife was pregnant, he never knew his son born in 1900, whom she named Thomas, after his paternal grandfather. John Robert Cowan is commemorated as one of the many names inscribed on the Boar War Memorial, Saltwell Park, Gateshead, to the, “Grateful Remembrance of the Gateshead Men who lost their lives in their Country’s Service”. The inauguration ceremony which took place in 1905 was attended by the widows, children and relatives, afterwards there was a civic reception in the park.
Widowed, with two children at the age of 34, Caroline remarried in 1903 at Gateshead to Harry Kerridge, a coal miner, originally from Bramfield, Suffolk and with whom she had 2 daughters, Alice Mary born 1904 and Caroline Amelia in 1907. They were living at 33, Second Street, Wardley Colliery, in 1911, John Cowan now aged 12 years was a scholar.
John Cowan left his employment as a miner to enlist at Newcastle-upon-Tyne and was initially assigned as Private 1965 Royal Army Medical Corp serving at home, once turned 19 he was transferred as Driver 92656 to the 115th Battery, 25th Brigade, Royal Field Artillery attached to the 26th Division. After its formation in September 1914 and training at Salisbury Plain the main body of the division departed in 1915, he joined the 115th Battery in the field in 1916 and saw action at Horseshoe Hill and 1917 during the First and Second Battles of Doiran between the allied Greek and British troops against the Bulgarians in the Balkans where the Bulgarians were repulsed. Driver Cowan’s unit was amongst the few that returned to France in spring 1918, the remainder staying in the Balkans. After a period in reserve on the Dutch-Belgian border they returned to combat in the Champagne region, June 1918.
Driver 92656 John Cowan died May 8th 1918 and was interred at Pernes British Cemetery, Pas de Calais, France, grave II. D. 24. Nominated as his sole beneficiary his mother Caroline received all monies due to him, a pension and his awards of the British War Medal and Victory Medal, sent to her at 13, Third Street, Wardley Colliery, Pelaw, Gateshead, County Durham. She commissioned an additional inscription to be added to his military headstone at a cost of 6 shillings 8 pence, it reads, “Peace Perfect Peace-At Rest”.
Caroline Kerridge-Cowan nee Sproat died in the district of Durham NE, aged 77 years in 1944.
The CWGC entry for Driver Cowan has in error listed him as service number 82656, military records (Medal Card, Register of Soldiers Effects and Soldiers Died in the Great War 1914-1918) all list him as 92656.
In God’s safe keeping. Rest In Peace.
John Cowan is remembered at Heworth on H92.03
