Mr Alfred G. Rowe

Mr Alfred G. Rowe, was born in Peru on 24 February 1853, the son of John James and Agnes Rowe of Liverpool. He was one of seven children. Rowe later moved to England, and then, in 1879, settled in Donley County, Texas where he started a ranch with his brothers Vincent and Bernard 1.

In 1910, Rowe had moved back to England with his wife and children. He returned a few times a year to check on his ranch, which he had left with a manager. For his last such trip Rowe booked passage on the Titanic as a first class passenger (ticket number 113790, £26 11s).

Accounts at the time suggested that after the sinking he swam to an piece of ice where he was later found frozen to death. However the body was simply picked up, like so many others, by the Cable Ship Mackay-Bennett.

It was forwarded from Halifax on 4 May 1912 to Liverpool on the Empress of Britain. On Tuesday 14th May 1912 he was buried at Toxteth Park Cemetery, Smithdown Road, Liverpool.

His eldest brother Charles Graham Rowe (of Graham Rowe & Co., Mersey Chambers, Old Church Yard, Liverpool) received his effects on 30 May 1912 which consisted of one gold signet ring, a card case containing two photos, cards and certificate of posting of a registered postal packet. Three Bank of England £5 notes, Newspaper cuttings and memos in pencil.

The Rowe family grave at Toxteth Park Cemetery, Smithdown Road, Liverpool
Courtesy of Stephen Quinn, UK

Notes
1. The ranch would eventually grew to encompass about 100 sections and reached from Gray County, through the present town of McLean, to Lela on the north, and from there to the present town of Quail and to within five miles of Clarendon. Rowe donated land in Gray County that eventually became McLean. The remains of his ranch, now considerably smaller, makes up the Lewis Ranch, named for W.J. Lewis, who bought the ranch from Rowe's widow.

References and Sources

Daily Post and Mercury, Wednesday, May 15, 1912 Titanic Victim''s Funeral
Contract Ticket List, White Star Line 1912 (National Archives, New York; NRAN-21-SDNYCIVCAS-55[279])
White Star Line (1912.) Record of Bodies and Effects (Passengers and Crew S.S. "Titanic") Recovered by Cable Steamer "MacKay Bennett" Including Bodies Buried at Sea and Bodies Delivered at Morgue in Halifax, N.S. Public Archives of Nova Scotia, Halifax, N.S., Manuscript Group 100, Vol. 229, No. 3d, Accession 1976-191, 76 pp., unpaged.
Coroners Report (Public Archives of Nova Scotia, RG 41, Vols. 75-76)
"ROWE, ALFRED." The Handbook of Texas Online. (http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/RR/froba.html) [Accessed Sun Apr 22 12:15:44 US/Central 2001
Garry D. Shutlak & Alan Ruffman (2000) A New Discovery: The Inquest into the Death of Mr. Alfred Rowe, First Class Passenger, Titanic Victim and Body 109 ? recovered by the Mackay-Bennett. Atlantic Daily Bulletin, British Titanic Society, 2000, No.4, pp 6-9
Pauline D. and R. L. Robertson (1981) Cowman''s Country: Fifty Frontier Ranches in the Texas Panhandle, 1876-1887. Amarillo, Paramount.

Related Articles and Documents

	(1912)	60 OF TITANIC DEAD TO BE BURIED TO-DAY
	Daily Post and Mercury  (1912)	TITANIC VICTIM'S FUNERAL