Roll of Honour

Lost on the Armoured Cruiser HMS Hogue.

William Edward Bowes was born on March 25th, 1887, to William Bowes, a shipyard labourer born around 1849 in Workington, and his Hartlepool-born wife Mary.

The 1861 census shows William senior in Workington with his mother Hannah, a mariner's wife and William himself at 12 years as a shipwright's apprentice. Work involving the sea appears, in one form or another, to be a family tradition and is probably the reason William senior moved to Hartlepool.

On the 1891 Census, William was the youngest child, the others being Richard, John, Frances and Sarah. Richard was 16 at the time and born in Hartlepool indicating that William senior had been in Hartlepool since at least the early 1870s.
In 1891, he is recorded as a Sailor and William junior a child of 4.
In 1901, William was 14 and an apprentice ships' plater living with his parents, two sisters and younger brother Robert, in Hawkridge Street, West Hartlepool. 

In 1907, William junior married Margaret Hall. The 1911 Census shows William, a shipyard labourer, living at 20, Mary Street, Throston, with his wife Mary, who was born in Sunderland, and children Lawrence 4, Sarah 1 and new baby Mary.

William became a stoker on HMS Hogue, an Armoured Cruiser used as a training ship but recommissioned in WW1. It was sunk on September 22nd 1914 while on patrol with HMS Aboukir and HMS Cressy and William Edward Bowes was amongst the 375 who perished. His body was not recovered.
His wife Margaret is recorded as living at 20, Mary Street, Hartlepool, at this time.