Edwin Percy Farrow was born on 5 April 1890 in Manchester, Lancashire, the second of the four children of Edwin Farrow (1856-1950) and Louisa Elizabeth Ann Farrow née Percy (1863-1950). His birth was registered in the 2nd quarter of 1890 in the Barton upon Irwell registration district, Lancashire and on 4 May 1890 he was baptised at the Wesleyan-Methodist Chapel, Bridgewater Hall, Great Bridgewater Street, Hulme, Manchester, where the baptismal register shows the family residing at 124 Cornbrook Street, Brook Bar, Manchester. An elder sister, Elsie Farrow (1885-1889), had died, aged 3 years 6 months, on 23 January 1889.
The 1891 census confirms that he was living at 124 Cornbrook Street, Stretford, with his parents and his paternal grandfather Joseph Farrow (1816-1891), together with a female domestic servant. His father is described as a salesman and his grandfather as a retired grocer.
In the 1901 census he is shown as a schoolboy at Epworth College, Rhuddlan Road, Rhuddlan, North Wales, where he was to become the Senior Prefect and twice winning the Sports Championship. His parents where listed at 32 Cavendish Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, together with his two younger siblings: John Worthington Farrow (1894-1916) and Louise Newling Farrow (1900-1975), plus a female domestic servant. His father was now shown as a manager of a window, blind & curtain department.
He passed the Intermediate Arts Examination at University College, London, which he entered in October 1908 and stayed there, with an interval of two years due to poor health, until November 1914. During this time he captained the College Association Football XI in the seasons 1909-1910 and 1910-1911 and was a member of the Association Football Team sent by the University of London Athletic Union to play the leading clubs of Moscow, Russia. The 1911 census shows him as an art student residing at University College Hall, Queen's Walk, Ealing, Middlesex and electoral registers for 1912 confirm him listed as a lodger renting a first floor furnished bedroom at the rate of 10 shillings per week at this address.
In November 1914 he enlisted in the Public Schools Battalion of the Royal Naval Division, service number Z/708, and was promoted to 1st Class Petty Officer on 25 January 1915. He obtained a commission as a Sub-Lieutenant in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve on 24 February 1915 and was appointed to the Hawke Battalion, Royal Naval Division.
On 9 March 1915 he married Beatrice Mary Symes (1887-1979) at All Saints Church, Fulham, where in the marriage register he is described as a bachelor and a sailor residing at Hargate Drive, Hale, Cheshire, whilst his wife was shown as a spinster living 29 Colehill Gardens, Fulham.
From 10 May 1910 he served in the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force at Gallipoli, Turkey, where he was killed in action, aged 25 years, on 25 August 1915, when as Officer Commanding, 16th Platoon, 'D' Company, he was hit by a stray bullet whilst his platoon was being employed in digging a new trench behind the existing support and firing lines. His Commanding Officer wrote to his wife saying that his body was buried in a small enclosed cemetery in the Gully Ravine on the left hand side going up towards Krithia, but as the exact location in the cemetery is now unknown he is commemorated on Special Memorial C, No.354 in the Twelve Tree Copse Cemetery.
He was posthumously awarded the 1914-1915 Star, the British War Medal 1914-1918 and the Victory Medal. He is also commemorated on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission's website, on the Imperial War Museum's Lives of the First World War website and on the Hale War Memorial, Hale, Manchester immediately above that of his younger brother Serjeant J. W. Farrow of the Manchester Regiment who had died on 5 May 1916 in France.
Credit for this entry to: Andrew Behan.
