Photo: Brian Chandler
In St. Cuthbert's Old Cemetery is a family headstone which reads:
Charles L.C. Bowes-Lyon
Lt. Black Watch aged 29
Killed in action Belgium Oct 1914
Buried British Cemetery Nr. Ypres
New Irish Farm, St.Jean
+In te Domine Speravi
(In te Domine Speravi translates as "In Thee, O God, I put my trust).
Sydney Graham has submitted the following:
He was the son of the Honourable Francis Bowes-Lyon and a cousin of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth (the Queen Mother).
Charles attended Eton where he was a keen cricketer and sportsman and then studied electrical engineering at the Royal College of Science in Newcastle, becoming a Chartered Engineer. He was also a reserve officer, first in the Fife and Forfarshire Yeomanry and then in the Black Watch. In 1911 he went to India where he took up a post as an engineer in Bombay. In 1914 he returned to England by way of Japan and Canada from where he commenced his Atlantic crossing on the steamship Empress of Ireland. This ship was sunk in the St Lawrence River with the loss of many lives but Charles survived the sinking to return to England. He was mobilised with his regiment and immediately sent to France where he took part in the battles of the Marne and the Aisne. Charles was killed in action on 23rd October 1914.
Lieut. Bowes-Lyon is remembered in Beltingham on B21.01 and B21.03 and in Haltwhistle on H5.06
