The February meeting took the form of a talk entitled “The Mystery Soldier of St Erth” given by Cedric Appleby.

The intriguing title expanded to become the story of Cedric's detective work in finding details of the man Sapper B Wroe of the Canadian forces, whose name appeared on a war memorial at St Erth, dying in 1918. There was no trace in either the Canadian or British military records of anyone of that name dying in that year. We were told that a search of the Cornishman Newspaper for 1918 produced “Michael Albert Rowe of Trannack, St Erth who died in the military hospital in Montreal”. This miss-spelling of his name was only the first of a series of stumbling blocks and false leads that almost threw Cedric off the trail of Sapper Rowe. He was helped in his search by Major Bob Harrison, the Canadian National War Museum and the National Library of Canada.

Further research revealed that he was a local boy, son of a Trannack farming family and known familiarly as “Bertie”. Originally a draper’s assistant, he emigrated to America in 1906. At some stage in the First World War he must have crossed into Canada and volunteered for the forces. However, while training, before seeing active service, he caught pneumonia (probably the “Spanish Flu”) and died at the age of 31 in Ottawa. However, once again, unanswered questions remain, why was he not buried where he died, in Ottawa? Instead, he is listed buried, over 100 miles away, in Montreal.

Cedric went to Montreal looking for his grave. In the cemetery there were 32 Rowes. Finally after searching the plots on three separate occasions he located a flat stone slab on which the name of “Micheal Rowe” was engraved. Once again he could not escape erratic spelling!

Before launching into his search for the Mystery Soldier, Cedric explained why the St Erth War Memorial was erected in 1917, a year before the end of hostilities.....but that is material for quite another story.....

Cedric then widened the subject to include the impact and seriousness of the “Spanish Flu” pandemic and also described the treatment of soldiers wounded on the battlefields and their repatriation. The talk finished with a mention of various Cornish people who emigrated to Canada and became famous there, the Redruth born Architect Michael Teague responsible for the impressive City Hall building in Victoria, Vancouver Island, as well as Altarnun born Robert Whale, landscape and portrait painter. Cornwall also received visits from Canadian artists such as the well known Emily Carr, who attended a painting school in St Ives, and loved to paint outdoors in the woods around Tregenna Castle. We were shown photographs of examples of their work.

We were very grateful to Cedric Appleby for giving us a very interesting afternoon.

Members will next meet on Tuesday, March 25 at 2.30pm at the Public hall when the speaker will be Elaine Tangye, MD of the much travelled Cornwall Male Voice Choir.