4740 Cpl Maurice Lowrey, 5th Lancers

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Arrived overseas: 15 August 1914.

Connection: PoW postcard, Doeberitz.

Maurice Lowrey originally joined the army on the 18th September 1897 as a nineteen-year-old. He was working as a barman at the time and enlisted with the 5th Lancers, subsequently seeing service overseas in South Africa. He was still stationed there when Britain went to war with the Boers, and was severely wounded at Brandkraal on the 15th November 1901.

By September 1904, Maurice had completed his seven years with the colours and was transferred to the army reserve where he remained for the next five years. He then re-engaged for a further four years as a Section D army reservist, and when this four-year period was up, re-engaged again for a further four years. When Britain went to war with Germany in August 1914, he was immediately recalled to the colours, and on the 15th August 1914 he landed in France. In common with many reservists, Maurice had not engaged in active soldiering for a number of years, and in his case, close ten years. 

Nine days after arriving in France, Maurice was captured by the Germans and would spend the rest of the war as a Prisoner of War, incarcerated in German camps for the most part, before being interned in Holland in February 1918.

This postcard dates to Maurice's time at Doeberitz PoW camp and states on the reverse, 4740 Cpl M Lowrey, 5th Lancers. There is only one man in the photo wearing a corporal's stripes and this is the man on the back row, far left. Maurice also wears his QSA and KSA medal ribbons from the Boer War.

Maurice Lowrey returned to the UK on the cessation of hostilities in 1918 and was discharged from the army the following year.


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