Commemorative plaque, Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Howard Foulkes and his wife, Bertha Bowness, 1920

Commemorative plaque made by P Orr and Sons, from the Punjab Frontier Force Memorial Wall S10, 'Erected by their many friends in India', 1920.

After the Partition of India in August 1947 the Frontier Force units were divided between the Indian and Pakistan Armies. It was then decided that the memorials to the Punjab Frontier Force, the 'Piffers', erected in the garrison churches should be relocated to England, and in 1951 they were installed in the Parish Church of St Luke's, Chelsea.

Lieutenant-Colonel Foulkes was the Assistant Director Medical Services in the Kohat District on the North West Frontier of India. An entry in 'The Pioneer Mail' of 26 November 1920, records the murder of Foulkes by a 'gang of raiders' in his bungalow, in the early hours of 15 November 1920. His wife was wounded in the attack and dragged from the house but was subsequently released. She later died of her injuries on 6 December 1920. The journal, 'The Nineteenth Century and After', blames the attack on a gang led by Ajab Khan, 'a Bosti Khel Afridi', citing the later discovery of stolen rifles and possessions from the Foullkes bungalow in his village in Kohat. The gang fled across the border into Afghanistan and were later blamed for the murder of Major A J Ellis's wife and the abduction of his daughter at Kohat in 1923.

In 1902, prior to her marriage to Foulkes, Bertha Bowness Fischer had passed the professional examination held by the Society of Certified and Associated Agents (SCALA), allowing her to act as a Liberal Party political agent in England, registering voters, managing campaigns and party business. This was over a decade before women were given the vote.