ROWLAND HIGGINS

RANK: Lance Corporal.

SERVICE NUMBER: 23461.

REGIMENT: 1st Bn Royal Fusiliers City of London Regiment.

BORN: Oulton near Wakefield..

ENLISTED: Pontefract West Yorkshire.

GAVE HIS LIFE: 23/03/1918.

AGED: 35.

CEMETERY: Pozieres Memorial France.

PANEL: 19 to 21.

LEEDS MODERN: 1896-1901.

Rowland was the son of Benjamin Wood Higgins Born Oulton 1849 and Annie Eliza Wilson Born Rothwell 1855, they married in Hunslet Leeds 1873.

Rowland was one of seven brothers, including:

Private Ernest Arthur Service Number M2/104377 Born Oulton 1876 who lost his life aged 43 on the 1st March 1918 serving with the 61st Ammunition Sub Park Army Service Corps and lies in peace at the Ham British Cemetery near St Quentin France.

Other brothers who all served during the Great War were:
Wood, Reginald, Percy, Gerald, Harold, Clifford and Cecil sisters included Florence, Dorothy and Edith.

Rowland left Leeds Boys Modern and worked in the London City Midland Bank, staying there until he joined the 1st Battalion Royal fusiliers.

Rowland was an active member of the local community in Oulton and was involved as a church worker, and was a member of the local cricket club.

Rowland was sent to France in early 1916 and on the 21st March 1918 his battalion were involved in the Armys retreat as the Germans made one final push, it was reported at the time that Rowland lost his life on the Railway near Chaulnes on the 25th March 1918 with other members of his company. Rowland lies were he fell to this day being remembered on the Pozieres Memorial to the missing.