Author: Bowra, William
Biography:
BOWRA, William (1746-1816: ancestry.co.uk)
Although Ode to Freedom was published anonymously, the Bodley library copy is inscribed “To Richard Clark, Esq., With the Respectful Compliments of the Author, William Bowra.” (Richard Clark was lord mayor and chamberlain of London; he would have known Bowra through his position as president of Christ’s Hospital.) Bowra was the son of John Bowra of Peckham and his wife Martha Crittenden (or Cruttenden); he was baptised at St. Michael’s, East Peckham on 4 Apr. 1746. He was educated at Christ’s Hospital and admitted to Pembroke College, Cambridge, on 5 July 1763 (BA 1767, Fellow 1769, MA 1770). He was ordained deacon in 1768 and became a priest in 1770 when he was appointed as curate in Maidstone. Some of his personal information is difficult to identify because there were several others with his name living in Kent, but CCEd lists just one William Bowra as a clergyman. The license for William Bowra’s marriage to Sarah Burr at West Tarring, Sussex, on 5 Jan. 1773 identifies the groom as “the Rev.” and so too do the West Tarring baptismal records for William Bowra (10 Dec. 1774) and Sarah Bowra (8 Jan. 1776). Bowra was elected Grammar Master at Christ’s Hospital in Hertford when the school created the position in 1773. He held that post until he became vicar at Clavering, Essex, in 1801. Sarah died in 1798. At Bishop Stortford, Hertfordshire, Bowra married Sarah Wisbey; they had two children, Mary and Charles, baptised at Clavering. Bowra died suddenly at home and was buried on 7 June 1816 at his church, St. Mary and St. Clement, in Clavering. (ancestry.co.uk 21 June 2023; findmypast 21 June 2023; W. Trollope, History of the Royal Foundation of Christ’s Hospital [1834], 302; Commercial Chronicle 8 June 1816; ODNB [for Richard Clark] 21 June 2023; ACAD; CCEd 21 June 2023)