Howard, AL

Lieutenant Alfred Lewis Howard

Alfred was born on September 12th 1895, the youngest of three surviving children, and only son, of an import/export merchant specialising in deals with Australia, who was also named Alfred Howard, and his wife, Eveline. He came to the College in the summer of 1909, shortly before his fourteenth birthday, and was present at Dulwich for the next two years. After leaving in the summer of 1911 he went up to the Technical Textile College, in Bradford, and spent some time working in the wool and cotton mills of the North. After returning to London in September 1913 he enlisted as a reservist in the City of London Yeomanry.
The declaration of war in the summer of 1914 resulted in the mobilisation of Alfred and his unit and the following March they were sent to Egypt. Later that year they took part in the landings at Gallipoli and at the end of the year, after the retreat, he was invalided home to England, having fallen badly ill. While at home he took up a commission, albeit without changing regiment, and for much of 1916 was in training around Britain. In December 1916 he returned to the Mediterranean, but this time to the front at Salonica, in Greece; while posted there he spent two weeks giving the ex-King of Greece a tour of the front, something he described as “the fortnight of his life”. By late 1917 he was in Palestine, where he was killed on November 21st, attempting to help a wounded comrade during the retreat at Beitunia, nine miles north of Jerusalem.