David Dickie Howie

David Dickie Howie (12 May 1888 – 19 January 1916) was a rugby union player, who represented Scotland and Kirkcaldy RFC. He enlisted as a trooper in the local yeomanry in September 1914, at the start of the First World War. After undergoing training in England, he was commissioned second lieutenant in the Royal Field Artillery in April 1915 and despatched to Gallipoli in August. During the evacuation of Anzac Bay, he contracted pneumonia, and died in Cairo, Egypt, after shooting himself with a revolver while in a state of delirium. He is buried at the Cairo War Memorial Cemetery.

Howie, who played as a forward, was capped seven times for Scotland between 1912 and 1913.

David Dickie Howie was born in Rosebery Temple, Midlothian, to Archibald and Jessie Howie. He attended Kirkcaldy High School. While there, he played as a forward in the school rugby XV for three years. He also was the winner in 1903 of the Nairn Cup, awarded to the school’s champion athlete.

Howie, like his father, was a farmer. He married Marie Winifred Gibson, with whom he had a daughter, Eleanor Margot Linton Dickie, born 4 May 1915 in Skegness.

Dave Howie was the brother of Bob Howie, who also played for Kirkcaldy and also gained seven national caps, in the 1920s, as well as representing Great Britain in four games on the 1924 tour to South Africa. Although he and his brother gained fourteen caps between them, their father, a grim farmer, never watched them once, saying : "Rugby an’ fermin’ will no agree, an’ A ken which’ll pit mair money in yer pooch."