Arthur Howell

Arthur Gilbert Howell (1894–1949) was a Western Australian public servant and soldier known for his receipt of the Military Medal for excellent services as a dispatch runner at Pozières in the First World War.^[1] He lived in Fremantle, Western Australia.

He was born in Bayswater, Western Australia in 1894 to Thomas John Howell and Clara Ellen Howell (née Birch).^[2] They later moved to 218 Mary Street (now part of Solomon Street) in Fremantle.

Howell served in the Australian Artillery as a gunner in Field Artillery Brigade 2 (Reinforcement 14). He departed Australia aged 22 on 28 January 1916 from Melbourne on HMAT A32 Themistocles,^[3] and was discharged in September 1918.

After the war he returned to his prior employment with Fremantle Municipal Tramways, and later served as Assistant Town Clerk for the North Fremantle Council for more than 13 years.^[4]

In 1925 he married Alice M. Ray^[5] and they had four children.

In the Second World War he served in the Volunteer Defence Corps and the Australian Army as a Captain.

He was secretary of both the Fremantle District Committee and Central Committee of the Western Australian Diphtheria Immunisation clinic from 1936 until his death (other than for three years during the war).

Howell died on 25 July 1949 of a heart attack suffered whilst attending a meeting in East Fremantle.^[4]

In the early 2000s a street, Howell Vista, was named after him in Beaconsfield, Western Australia.

References

Further reading

• Howell, Arthur Gilbert; Howell, Ray (2001), Signaller at the front : the war diary of Gunner Arthur G. Howell M.M., First Australian Field Artillery Brigade, and his impressions of the Great War, 1915-1918, Hesperian Press, ISBN 978-0-85905-305-1