ROWLAND BOURKE
“BEFORE THE WAR HE WAS THE KIND OF CHAP WITH WHOM GIRLS DANCED OUT OF KINDNESS. TODAY HE’S A HERO”
“IT WASN’T HIS EYESIGHT AND LIMITATIONS THAT REALLY COUNTED – IT WAS HIS KEENNESS”
– Coningsby Dawson
Some men pass through life inconspicuously, while others rise to the occasion in the moments when they are needed most. Coningsby Dawson, a Canadian novelist and officer during World War I, said that war is a “test of internals, of the heart and spirit of a man”. He pointed out that these attributes were more important than anything else a man could possess on the battlefield. In the same letter, he offered a fellow Canadian, Rowland Bourke, as a prime example of a man whose heart and spirit made up for everything that he physically lacked. Ridiculed by his neighbours for wanting to enlist, Dawson said that Bourke “elbowed his way through their laughter to self-conquest” and saved over 40 lives during the two raids on Ostend in 1918.
Born in London in November 1885, Rowland Richard Louis Bourke – known as ‘Rowley’ among family and friends – moved to the remote Yukon territory in 1902. His father, Dr. Isadore McWilliam Bourke, a
