COWD Frank Henry

What we know about COWD Frank Henry

The second son of Charles Montague Cowd and Ellen Mary (Challis), Frank was born in Budleigh Salterton where he helped in his father’s hairdressing business at 14 Fore Street until he joined up. He was a member of the Football Club and also appears in the photo with others from The Devonshire Regiment ‘going off to war’ which is in the Fairlynch Museum.

A photograph of him in Mesopotamia can also be seen on the museum’s display board. He died there of enteric fever while serving with the 2nd Battalion of the Northumberland Fusiliers. Frank is remembered on the Budleigh Salterton War Memorial and the brass plaque in St Peter’s Church. He is also remembered on a gravestone in St Peter’s Cemetery, Moor Lane, and at the Amara War Cemetery in modern-day Iraq.

His older brother Reginald Montague Cowd sailed to Wellington, New Zealand on RMS Rotorua on 11 May 1912 together with Stephen Prew (who was killed at Gallipoli) and returned on the same ship on 31 December 1914 to enlist in the 1st Devon Yeomanry. He married Lavinia Scobie in 1915 and they had two children, Muriel Jean and Gerald Montague Cowd. Gerald worked for a wholesale grocer in Exeter until 1942 when he bought the Lions Holt Ale Off-Licence in the city. He retired in 1955 and died in 1982.

Frank Cowd, Pte, 1/4th Devons, I.E.F. is listed under Army (Active Service) in the Budleigh Salterton Rolls of Honour.

Medals awarded

Victory Medal (1914-19)

British War Medal (1914-1920)

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