Born into a large family of textile merchants long established in Devonshire. He was the eldest of eight children of Sir John Bowring, the politician. There is no information about his upbringing, but by the spring of 1842 he was engaged as a businessman in Hong Kong, where he must have been one of the first British residents. By 1848, and perhaps earlier, he was working for the well-known firm of Jardine, Matheson, and Company, and by 1854 when his father was appointed Governor of Hong Kong, he became a full partner in the company. Bowring remained in Hong Kong until 1864, when he returned to England a rich man at the age of 43. He married in 1863 and after his first wife's death, again in 1866. By his second wife he had seven sons and one daughter. He was a J.P. for Devon, became Freeman of the city of Exeter in 1866, before moving to an estate in Windsor Forest, Forest Farm, where he died.
Bowring appears to have collected insects from the time he first arrived in China. By 1848 he is recorded to have possessed upwards of 600 species of Coleoptera largely from the Hong Kong and Macao districts, and by 1855 this number had grown to some 1,300. He became a friend of J.G. Champion when the latter was resident in Hong Kong during the years 1847-50, and the two often collected together and exchanged specimens. W.W. Fowler in his introductory volume to the FBI notes that Bowring also collected at Dacca in Bengal.
As early as 1844 he was sending specimens to the British Museum, and he continued this practice until 1863, when anticipating retirement, he presented his entire collection to that institution. Troyer notes that no two sources agree about the number of specimens involved estimates varying from 84,240 to 230,000. F. Smith, Proc.ESL., 1864, 196-216, notes that the collection was housed in 400 cabinet drawers. Similarly, there is disagreement about the names of the collectors from whom Bowring acquired specimens. The total of references adds up to the following: Frederick Bates, Brettingham, Curtis, L.A.A. Chevrolat (Longicornia), Robert Fortune, Henri Jekel (1857, Rhyncophora), M. Mouhot, F.J.S. Parry (Anthribidae), T. Tatum (Geodephaga) and Alfred Russel Wallace. All sources agree in mentioning the collections of Chevrolat, Jekel and Tatum. Apart from the specimens in the NHM I have also seen beetles bearing Bowring's labels in the collection of the Albert Memorial Museum Exeter.
Westwood described Bowring, as 'our indefatigable Corresponding Member [of the FES]', but inspite of his prowess as a writer of letters, some of which were published by their recipients, he published only few articles himself. Of these his notes on parasitism of the firefly Fulgora were the most important for they were the first record of parasitic Lepidoptera. Although Bowring is recorded to have kept a journal in which he noted names for new species, most of his captures were named for him by others. It is not surprising, therefore, that between 1844 and 1939 a total of forty five species and two varieties were established with the epithets bowringi or bowringii. Bowring also devoted a considerable amount of time to botanical studies, he formed large collections of plants and several species are named after him.
There is an excellent article on Bowring by James Troyer in Archives of Natural History, (1982),10(3), 515-529, which includes a list of Bowring's publications, and from which much of the above is taken.
FES (1847), FLS (1876). (MD 10/01)