Second Lieutenant William Mowbray

Second Lieutenant William Mowbray, Indian Army Reserve of Officers att.1st Battalion, 9th Gurkha Rifles. He was killed in action in Mesopotamia, aged 29, on 14th January 1916 in the fighting near ” The Wadi ” on the banks of the River Tigris. He was the son of Mr. W. B. and Catherine Mowbray of Sprouston Bank, Newtown St. Boswells and is commemorated on the Basra Memorial, Iraq. He had been employed as a clerk with the North British Railway Company at Newton St. Boswells before moving to Edinburgh where he qualified as an auditor. He then gained a post with the Bombay, Baroda and Central Indian Railway in 1908. He was commissioned into the Indian Army in December 1914. The Battalion was part of the Force sent to relieve General Townshend’s forces who were besieged in the town of Kut.