A RETIRED Bolton soldier who left almost £1.5 million when he died, showed his devotion to dogs in his will.

Lieutenant-Colonel Jack Rowley died in October last year, aged 93, and left bequests of £1,000 each to the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association and the Bolton Destitute Animal Shelter.

The bulk of the estate was left to his family.

Money was also left to Christ Church, Heaton, which has long connections with his family, and Freemasons charities.

Mr Rowley, of Towncroft Lane, Heaton was born in Bolton, the son of Douglas Rowley, who ran a chain of opticians and who provided the sunglasses for Ernest Shackleton's 1911 Antarctica expedition.

After boarding school he achieved his ambition of joining the Army, training at Sandhurst. In 1932, he was posted to India where he began his career as a 2nd Lieutenant with the Loyal Regiment on the North West frontier.

A year later he transferred to the Indian Army.

In 1937 in Rawalpindi, he married nurse Vera Nash, who he had met at a dinner party.

The couple had two children, Rosanel and John.

During the Second World War, he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and served in Assam and Burma.

During the advance on Rangoon in 1945, his bravery earned him a mention in dispatches and in October the same year he was awarded the OBE.

He continued on to Singapore and, with the rank of acting Brigadier, was present when the area was handed back to civilian rule in May, 1946.

Following the partition of India, Mr Rowley returned to England and went to university to train as an optician.

He ran the family business until he retired in 1981. His wife died in 1984.

He had been a founder member of the Bolton branch of the Burma Star Association.

His daughter, Bolton GP Dr Rosanel Barben, said: "He was a very very kind man and would go out of his way to help anyone."

The great grandfather was a keen golfer and a Freemason.

He loved dogs and took in retired guide dogs or those who did not meet the standard and took more dogs from the animal shelter.