Author: Bowring, John
Biography:
BOWRING, John (1792-1872: ODNB)
Businessman, linguist, traveller, diplomat, and journalist, Bowring was born in Exeter, the son of a wool-merchant, and educated at a Unitarian boarding-school. He married Maria Lewin in 1816; they had nine children. (After her death in 1858, he married for a second time; his widow, Deborah Castle Bowring, lived to 1902.) Bowring travelled widely on business--to Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, Russia, and Scandinavia--and as Secretary of the London Greek Committee, corresponded with Byron, q.v.. He was a close friend of Jeremy Bentham, who made him the political editor of the Westminster Review. His chief literary importance lies in his series of collections of poetry translated from relatively unknown languages (witness his Batavian, Cheskian, and Russian anthologies); he was also a significant author of hymns. He was active in politics and was elected to parliament 1835-7 and 1841-8. He was knighted in 1854 and served for six years, with mixed success, as the Governor of Hong Kong. His Memoirs were published posthumously by one of his sons in 1877. (ODNB 21 Dec. 2017) HJ