Brother Sir Neville Howse V.C.

On 24 July 1900, during the action at Vredefort, South Africa in the Second Boer War, then-Captain Howse of the New South Wales Medical Staff Corps, Australian Forces saw a trumpeter fall and went through very heavy cross-fire to rescue the man. His horse was soon shot from under him and the captain continued on foot, reached the casualty and dressed his wound. Howse then carried him to safety. For this action, Howse was awarded the Victoria Cross, his copy of which is now on display at the Australian War Memorial (Canberra, Australia).

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Howse returned to South Africa in 1902 just as the war was ending. Prior to World War I Howse married Evelyn Pilcher in Bathurst in 1905, and was twice elected to serve as mayor of Orange. When the First World War began Howse was appointed principal medical officer to the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force to German New Guinea, with the rank of lieutenant colonel.

Following his time in New Guinea, he was appointed assistant director of medical services 1st Australian Division. At the Battle of Gallipoli he took charge of evacuating wounded men from the beach in the campaign’s opening days, later in 1917 at the Dardanelles commission he described the arrangements for dealing with wounded men at Gallipoli as inadequate to the point of “criminal negligence”.

In September 1915 he was given command of ANZAC medical services and in November became director of the AIF’s medical services. When the First Australian Imperial Force moved to France, Howse took up a position in London, overseeing medical services in France, Egypt and Palestine.

Howse was knighted in 1917, and then in 1922 he resigned from the army and won the federal seat of Calare for the Nationalist Party. He held several ministerial portfolios, including defence and health. In 1930 Howse travelled to England for medical treatment for cancer, but died on 19 September.

                        Initiated on 29 August, 1901, in Lodge Ophir, No. 17, UGLNSW,

             in Orange,  passed on 16 January, 1902,

         and raised on 9 April, 1903.

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