Mess dress trousers : Lieutenant R S Bowman, Royal Field Artillery

Pair of dark blue wool trousers with wide scarlet wool stripes down each side seam and a high rear waist. A triangular gusset in a thinner black wool has been added to the rear to accomodate a larger size. There are six black metal buttons at the waist for attaching braces, a black metal waist button marked 'Excelsior', and four black celluloid fly buttons. The waist is lined and reinforced with striped twill cotton and white linen. There is a concealed pocket fitted behind the proper right waistband. The straight legs are finished with an angled cut up from heel to toe, and are each fitted with two pairs of black celluloid buttons on the inside bottom edge, to which an approximately 20 cm long leather strap is buttoned. The leather is dry and fragile.

Mess dress trousers worn by Robert Stuart Bowman, born 17 July 1890 at Pelham, Singleton, NSW. His father, Dr Alister Stuart Bowman served as a Major in the NSW Lancers at Singleton until 1905. Educated at Singleton Grammar School and Hawkesbury College, Bowman was jackerooing on the family property when the First World War was declared. Keen to join the heavy artillery which Australia then lacked, Bowman decided to enlist in England with the Royal Artillery, and sailed for England privately on 4 September 1915. After training, he embarked from England for France in the early part of 1916 as a second lieutenant assigned to D Battery, 18 Division Artillery, 84 Brigade on 18 pounder guns, commanding the supply of ammunition.

His battery supported the Somme Offensive of 1 July 1916 ('a terrible sight, trenches still full of German dead and most of our men out there also. The whole country is just a mass of craters. The dead were just smashed to bits by shell fire and all going black') and by 17 July had been moved to an area between Mericourt and Montauban in sight of the German lines. Just after 10:30 am the battery was shelled: 'First shell no damage. Next shell killed Wagner, hit Griffin in leg. Broke my thigh. I crawled into a ditch. More shells came over killing men and horses.'

Bowman was evacuated via Corbie to Endsleigh Palace Hospital in London and spent the next four months recovering. After leave and light duties, he was promoted to lieutenant and although due to return to France in September 1917, was instead transferred to India's North West Frontier, sailing on 6 October. Britain's forces were stretched thinly in India due to wartime committments in France and the Middle East, and was then poorly equipped with artillery. In 1919, Afghan troops crossed the border into India, starting a campaign which lasted from 6 May 1919 until an armistice was agreed on 8 August 1919. Lieutenant Bowman retured to Australia in March 1920. He returned to the land, managing the family property at Bunnan, near Scone until 1936, when he returned to Singleton to continue farming. He married Esme Connell on 7 December 1929 with whom he had a daughter, Elizabeth. Bowman died on 22 December 1971.