Frank Neville Cowper, born on 10th July 1896, was admitted to King Edward’s School in January 1908 as a Foundation Scholar. He lived with his parents, John and Emily, and his older brother, Stert Gilmer, also an Old Edwardian, who was wounded twice in the war. The family lived at Belle Walk, Moseley.
The School Lists reveal that Frank had an aptitude for scientific and engineering subjects, regularly appearing in the top third of his class.
Frank enlisted as a Private Soldier in the 1st Birmingham Pals Battalion (14th Royal Warwickshire Regiment), and in 1915 was gazetted to the 3rd Suffolk Regiment as a Second Lieutenant. His brother, Stert, was a Second Lieutenant in the same battalion as Frank that year, but after sustaining his second major wound, was attached to the Durham Light Infantry. Frank was killed in action, aged twenty, on 12th October 1916 on the Somme. He is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial, and on St Mary’s Church Memorial, Moseley.