Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Frederick Joseph Fowler (Army No 6559) was born in Aston Clinton, Bucks, England in 1879.

He served with the British Army (Imperial Yeomanry) for two years during the Second Boer War.

Later he emigrated to Sydney with his wife Rubina McLean nee Brown (known as Minnie), where it is reported that he worked as a painter.

In January 1917 he joined the Australian Army in Sydney and was promptly sent to England, where he was posted to the 22nd Machine Gun Company, and found himself in France by August 1917.

During the First Battle of Dernancourt of March 1918, which was a part of the battles of the Somme River opposing the German Spring Offensive of that year, he was gassed and hospitalised.

Sent back to the fighting with the 2nd Machine Gun Company, he was again gassed and suffered gunshot or shrapnel wounds.

After further treatment, he was returned to Australia and discharged in April 1919.

His health never recovered, and he died on 4 July 1919 in Sydney’s Randwick Military Hospital, reportedly of tuberculosis incidental to being twice gassed and twice wounded in the chin and rectum.

His wife Minnie was then working at McKenzies Surrey Hotel in King St, Sydney. She paid the large sum of £30 for her late husband’s funeral.

Minnie and Frederick had no children, however he was reported to also have been survived by a brother and a sister in England.

After her husband’s death, Minnie, adopting the name Sadie Wilkinson, lived with Walter Barwon Wilkinson, a mining businessman and prominent sportsman. They were unable to marry legally because Walter was unable divorce his first wife, Ida Constance Fletcher, although thoroughly estranged. Walter and Ida had a daughter in 1902, Ida Dorothy Wilkinson (1902-1957). Young Ida, despite being crippled by infantile paralysis, went on to become a successful fiction authoress under her married name, Dorothy Cottrell.

Walter and Sadie remained together for the rest of their lives until they both passed away during the 1960s, with Sadie being listed as “home duties” in the electoral rolls.

I uncovered this information about Frederick, just one of thousands of Australian WW1 casualties who died subsequently to the hostilities, while researching the life and times of Walter Barwon Wilkinson.