FREDERICK GEORGE BOWEN

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FREDERICK GEORGE BOWEN

Frederick died at 57 in 1931 and is buried with his wife Sarah Susan in Highgate Cemetery.

He was a member of the International Bible Students’ Association (which later became the Jehovah’s Witnesses) and this was his motivation for applying for Conscientious Objector status.

Born in 1875 he was 41 in 1916, living then at 13 Duckett Road in Hornsey.  He claimed absolute exemption at Hornsey Tribunal on 11^th August 1916, but they only granted exemption from combatant service;   this was confirmed at Middlesex Appeal Tribunal in September, but they made the exemption conditional upon him finding Work of National Importance, at least 50 miles outside London – and work which ‘would involve a sacrifice’.

Frederick was a tram driver by trade and his employers, London Tramways, approached Middlesex Tribunal to ask that he could continue to work for them.  They were 300 tram-drivers short, the work was considered a certified occupation and accepted as work of national importance for Conscientious Objector’s.  But the Tribunal refused their request and insisted that Frederick stuck to the terms they had laid down.

He eventually found work as a farm labourer at Waterloo Farm, Sandy, Beds.  He stayed there until 24^th October 1917 when he moved to Chesterfield Farm in Sandy.   There he was paid 40 shillings a week as opposed to the 32/6d. at the previous farm.  Mr. Odell, the owner of Chesterfield Farm, who called his business ‘market gardening’, also employed Barnard George Preston another conscientious objector.