John Frederick Edward Bowring was born on 9th August 1867 in Exeter, Devon, the eldest son of John Bowring and Mary Furlonger. He was educated at St George School, Sunninghill, Berkshire, followed by Eton School and Trinity College Cambridge. In 1900, he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the 5th Lancashire Fusiliers and was sent to South Africa where he was involved in the Boer War, receiving the Queen’s South Africa Medal with clasps for Cape Colony and Orange Free State.

By 1904 he had returned to England where he married Mary Georgina Frances Hope in Hanover Square, London. They had two sons; John, born in 1906, and Christopher, in 1909. In 1911, the family were living at The Cedars on the junction of Pytches Road and Melton Hill. John’s occupation was shown as Captain of the 3rd Lancashire Fusiliers (retired).

When war was declared on 4th August 1914, John returned to his old regiment, the Lancashire Fusiliers, where he was made Adjutant of the newly raised 12th (Service) Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers. After training, the battalion was posted to France as part of the 65th Brigade 22nd Division. They embarked from Folkestone on the HMT St Siriel, arriving in Boulogne on 5th September 1915. Their time in France was to be short and, by the end of October, they had travelled to Marseille for the voyage to Salonika. Half the battalion sailed on the SS Saturnia, the other half on the troop ship Cawdor Castle. The 12th (Service) Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers remained in Salonika until the spring of 1918. John, however, had been wounded in 1917 and sent back to Britain for treatment. In August 1917, he was transferred to the Labour Corps and promoted to Major, a position he would keep to the end of the war. For his war service, John received the 1914-15 Star and the British War and Victory Medals.

On discharge from the army at the end of the war, John returned to Suffolk and moved from Melton to Icklingham Hall near Mildenhall. He was invited back to the village on 1st February 1920 to unveil the War Memorial.