The following appears in the ‘Assam Gazette’:
The Officiating Chief Commissioner expresses the general feeling of the Province in deploring the death in action of Major E.C. Showers, Second-in-Command of the Indian Mounted Infantry Corps (Lumsden’s Horse) now serving in South Africa. As Commandant of the Surma Valley Light Horse for nearly five years he brought that body to a high state of efficiency by his soldierly qualities, his untiring devotion to the interests of the corps, and by his personal popularity among its members. His untimely death is a serious loss to Assam, and will be mourned by the officers and men of the corps. He was loved by all who knew him.
The Hon. H.J.S. Cotton, Chief Commissioner of Assam (now Sir Henry Cotton, K.C.S.I.), presiding at the Assam Dinner in London in June 1900, paid the following tribute to Major Showers:
Another gentleman had been pathetically alluded to both by Colonel Kirwan and Colonel MacLaughlin, and the mention of his name recalled a recent public dinner at Cachar, given as a send-off to Colonel Showers and other Volunteers. The admiration which all the Volunteers of Assam had for Colonel Showers was, indeed, a thing to have witnessed. When he rose to propose Colonel Showers’s health the cheering was vociferous and so continuous that it was at least ten minutes before he could get any hearing. He had never been present at a scene of such extraordinary enthusiasm, and he believed it was thoroughly well deserved. Colonel Showers was an exceptional man; thoroughly straightforward and practical, and a born leader of men. What was said of Jim Bludso might with equal truth be said of Colonel Showers:
‘A keerless man in his talk was Jim, And an awkward hand in a row; But he never funked and he never lied: I reckon he never know’d how.’
That was the type of man that Colonel Showers was—a simple-minded Englishman, true and staunch as steel, and courageous to the backbone. As Colonel Kirwan had told them, he died, as he would have wished to die, a soldier’s death. He was a soldier in his youth and became a soldier in his prime, and died for Queen and country. They were all proud of Lumsden’s Horse and of Colonel Showers, who died at the head of his men in the first battle in which they were engaged.