Service Details
- Branch of Service
- Army
- Conflict
- World War I (1914-1918)
- Date of Enlistment
- 19/08/1914
- Date of Discharge
- 30/04/1917
- Place of Enlistment
- Royal Military College, Duntroon ACT
Personal Details
- Gender
- Male
- Date of Birth
- 15/12/1894
- Place of Birth
- Adelaide, South Australia
- Address (at enlistment)
- Royal Military College, Duntroon ACT
- School(s) Attended
- Adelaide High School
- Occupation
- Soldier
- Next of Kin
- James and Zella Rowell (parents), Lockleys, South Australia
Unit and Rank Details
- Final Rank
- Captain
- Final Unit
- 3 Light Horse Regiment AIF
Notes
Rowell entered the Royal Military College, Duntroon with the first intake of cadets on 22 June 1911. He was a member of the guard of honour at the Canberra naming ceremony on 12 March 1913 which he described in his autobiography 'Full Circle'. He graduated from RMC on 2 November 1914 and was initially appointed as a Lieutenant in the 10th Battalion but sought to swap positions with fellow South Australian Eric Talbot Smith who had been allocated to the 3rd Light Horse Regiment commanded by Rowell's cousin. Smith would be one of the first men to land at Anzac and would be killed in action soon after.
Rowell's departure for Egypt was delayed by a bout of pneumonia but he landed on Gallipoli with the 3rd Light Regiment in mid May 1915. He was appointed to the rank of Captain in September 1915 but was evacuated in November 1915 with enteric and paratyphoid. He returned to Duntroon to work at the Officers Training School until June 1917.
Rowell remained in the army and would ultimately became the first Duntroon graduate to be appointed as Chief of the General Staff in April 1950. In 1953 he was appointed a KBE and he retired from the army in December 1954. Rowell died on 12 April 1975 at his home in Melbourne.
Description - height 5 feet 10 inches, weight 143 pounds, chest 34 inches, Church of England.
Sources
Colonel J.E. Lee, 'Duntroon: The Royal Military College of Australia 1911-1946', 1952
Sydney Rowell, 'Full Circle', 1974
NAA RecordSearch - Series B2455 (First Australian Imperial Force Personnel Dossiers, 1914-1920)
Australian Dictionary of Biography online
http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/adbonline.htm (entry for Rowell viewed 23/9/2013)
Stories from the ACT Memorial, 'The Honour Guard at the Canberra Commencement Ceremony', ACT Heritage Library www.library.act.gov.au/find/history/stories_from_the_act_memorial
Duntroon Society, 'The First Class', Newsletter 2/2011
Sydney Rowell, 1914. Duntroon Society Newsletter 2/2011.