George Bowlby

George Herbert Bowlby (16July 186510November 1916 ) was a Canadian physician and surgeon, municipal politician, and military officer. He was born in the town of Berlin, Ontario (now known as Kitchener), where he later practiced medicine and served in a succession of elected municipal positions, culminating in a term as mayor in 1901. Bowlby was the first person born in Berlin to become its mayor. In 1915, following the outbreak of the First World War, he joined the Canadian Expeditionary Force and travelled to England. There, he served in the Canadian Army Medical Corps and achieved the rank of Major. In November 1916, at the age of 51, he died in an accidental fall from a cliff near the military hospital in Sussex where he was assigned. which became known as Kitchener in 1916. His father was David Sovereign Bowlby, who was born in 1828 in Townsend Township in Norfolk County, Ontario. His father, Adam Bowlby, who was George Herbert's paternal grandfather, was a captain in the colonial militia during the War of 1812 and the Upper Canada Rebellion; his paternal grandfather, Richard Bowlby, who was George Herbert's great-grandfather, was a United Empire Loyalist who had lived in New Jersey and emigrated to Canada as a result of the American Revolution.

George Herbert's mother, Martha Esther Murphy, was born in 1838 in Québec. She was living in Montréal in 1856 when she married David Bowlby. Her father, Alexander Murphy, was a merchant in Montréal; little else of him is known.

David Sovereign Bowlby, George Herbert's father, received a literary education at Upper Canada College in Toronto; this was followed by studies in medicine, first at the Toronto School of Medicine (receiving a medical doctorate) and then at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City (where he received a second medical doctorate). David practiced medicine briefly in Paris, Ontario before relocating his practice to Berlin in October 1853. There, he became a prominent civic figure, serving on the town council for a number of years, as well as serving on the local school board. He was also active in the Church of England and president of the Berlin Rifle Association. Politically, he was "decidedly radical", and was also president of the Reform Association in Waterloo County.

It was also during this period, in 1894, that Bowlby married Blanche Alexandrine "Adine" Seagram, daughter of Joseph Emm Seagram, a wealthy distillery owner in the area. Bowlby took a keen interest in the hospital and would later serve on its Medical Advisory Committee. On 6 August 1914, the Grey's Horse, along with a number of other militia units, was placed on active service under section 69 of the Militia Act. It was joined with the 22nd Battalion The Oxford Rifles, an infantry unit, to form A Company of the 1st Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force.

In 1915, the Canadian Expeditionary Force began being restructured to include a greater number of administrative corps to support the Canadian combat units, ultimately forming the Canadian Corps. The Canadian Army Medical Corps (CAMC) took a more prominent role, and Bowlby offered his services as a surgeon, departing from Berlin in July 1915. He travelled to England, where he took up a position at the Royal Military Hospital, Shorncliffe Barracks, which was attached to the Shorncliffe Army Camp near Cheriton, Kent. He was later reassigned to a hospital at Bath, Somerset, and finally to Seaford, Sussex. By the time of his transfer to Seaford, Bowlby had been acting as the Deputy Assistant Director of Medical Services. At Seaford, the army had taken over a mansion and girls' school named Ravenscroft (or Raven's Croft) to use as an auxiliary hospital, which had been in use by the Royal Army Medical Corps since 1914.

In 1916, a section of the Canadian Army Medical Corps under Lieutenant Colonel Edwin Seaborn, who had commanded the No. 10 Stationary Hospital at Shorncliffe, was sent to take over operations at Seaford. Upon their arrival on 31 October, there were already patients waiting at the hospital for them. The hospital was soon over capacity and infectious diseases, including measles and mumps, were running rampant. A week after the unit's arrival, Seaborn was forced to transfer some patients to the Seaford Convalescent Hospital (the local civilian hospital) and to requisition two private residences to isolate infectious disease cases. The takeover of Ravenscroft itself occurred on 5 November.

On the evening of 10 November 1916, he was out walking at Seaford Head when, it was later surmised, he fell to his death. His body was discovered at the foot of some cliffs on 11 November, the next day, which was initially recorded as his official date of death.

Bowlby was cremated at the Golders Green Crematorium in London. His ashes were sent home to Kitchener and were subsequently buried at the Church of St. John the Evangelist, where he had been the warden. She was riding in the back seat of a Peerless automobile being driven by her brother, Thomas Seagram, when the car was struck by the driver of a Ford Roadster. She was pinned under the car and was critically injured, dying later in hospital.

His nephew, William Pope Clement, later served as mayor of Kitchener.