Private Frederick Fowler enlisted in the Rifle Brigade in May 1901 and saw brief service in South Africa 1901-02. Joining the 1st Battalion in France in mid-September 1914, he was wounded in the arm, and finished his career as an Officer's Servant prior to being discharged in December 1915. In his autobiography, From Verse to Worse, Lionel, Lord Tennyson, describes an encounter with Fowler while visiting his old Regiment, the Rifle Brigade in 1915, Fowler explaining to him that he had received 'a blighty one through the arm'. Tennyson was also shocked to discover from his old comrade that just six men remained from the original thousand that left for France in the previous year.