His father Henry Cowley (died 3 April 1930 at Easton, Portland, Dorset) was a "domestic gardener" on Census records.
Sadly, this pre-war lecture lists contain the names of some of other Kew staff including C. F. Ball, who would soon be killed on active service.
"Cowley would eventually be awarded the Pip, Squeak and Wilfred trio of medals for soldiers who served early in the First World War.
1890, Wantage, Berks - d. 1973, New Zealand) served in the same regiment as Cowley from 1915 and became a Sergeant, invalided out with trench foot to become a musketry instructor in Devon.
His wife Elsie Mabel (née Hurst) lost her 30-year-old brother Rifleman 4278 Percy Haslewood (or Hazlewood) Hurst of the 1st /16th Battalion, London Regiment (Queen's Westminster Rifles), who was killed on 1 July 1916, the first day of Battle of the Somme, during his battalion's diversionary attack on Gommecourt.
In late 1915 Cowley was invalided out of the Army, recovering from wounds and married Elsie Mabel Hurst on 8 December 1915 in Kingston, Surrey.
Bad harvests and the increasing German submarine attacks on merchant shipping were causing shortages, price rises and uncertainty over future supply.
Herbert Cowley continued to practical small pamphlets on Storing Vegetables and Fruit (1918), Cultivation with Movable Frames (1920) and a short book on The Modern Rock Garden (still in print).
"According to an obituary article in the Western Guardian on 9 November 1967, Cowley left journalism c. 1936 to 1940 to move to Withypool on Exmoor to run a riding school for 20 years up to the late 1950s.
Cowley and his wife made a final move to the Brixham area in the early 1960s, growing camellias, nerines and alpine plants.
[9] Cowley's unexpected move to the West Country and retirement from journalism may be explained by the death of one of his children in September 1940 during World War II.
One of his sons, RAF Sergeant Observer Robert Hurst Cowley, 580643, died aged 22 on 2 September 1940 flying with 57 Squadron on Blenheim bombers on anti-shipping patrols over the North Sea from its base in Elgin in Scotland.
Robert is listed on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) website as the "son of Herbert & Elsie Mabel Cowley of East Grinstead, Sussex".