Bowra, Edward Charles Macintosh, 1841-1874, and Bowra, Cecil Arthur Verner, 1869-1947

Various material from the papers of Edward Charles Macintosh Bowra (1841-74) and his eldest son, Cecil Arthur Verner Bowra (1869-1947), received as a single acquisition from Brigadier E V Bowra in 1961.

E C M Bowra began his working life at the London Customs House, a position he quickly left, in 1860, to join the British Legion of Garibaldi's Red Shirts in Italy. On returning to England, he became, in 1862, Private Secretary to Sir William Verner, MP. In 1863, he was appointed as a clerk in the Chinese Customs, working in Shanghai. In 1864-5, he worked as an interpreter in Peking and in Canton. In 1866, he travelled with the Chinese Secretary of Customs on a European tour, which he was responsible for organising. Whilst in England, he married Thirza Woodward, returning to work in the port of Ningpo, where their children Ethel and Cecil Bowra were born. He subsequently transferred to Canton, where he became Deputy Commissioner (1872), responsible for the co-ordination and safe transit of items to be exhibited at the Vienna Exhibition (1873), for which he received the Order of the Iron Crown from the Austrian Emperor. A third child, Edward, was born in England in May, 1874. E C M Bowra died in October of the same year, at the age of thirty-two. He published A History of the Kwang-tung Province of the Chinese Empire (Hong Kong, 1872).

C A V Bowra, E C M Bowra's eldest son, was born in 1869. On leaving school, he followed in his father's footsteps and applied to the Chinese Customs, arriving in Peking in 1886. He subsequently worked in Chefoo (1888-90), Canton (1890) and Amoy (1891). In 1896, in England, he married Ethel Fleay, afterwards returning to Chefoo. In 1899, he was appointed Assistant-in-Charge at Newchwang, Southern Manchuria. At the time of the Boxer Rebellion, he was made Commander of the Combined Defence Force (1900). In 1908, Bowra was appointed Senior Commissioner in Manchuria and Adviser to the Viceroy, and subsequently Chief Secretary in Peking (1910-23). He received the Order of the Rising Sun (from Japan), the Order of St Olaf (from Norway), and the Red Button and the Striped Tiger (Second Class) from China.