Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 06.djvu/71

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Bowes
59
Bowes

first among the Wesleyans, then as a primitive methodist minister. About 1830 he separated himself from that body, and, renouncing all party appellations, started a mission at Dundee, where he was joined by Mr. (afterwards Dr.) Jabez Burns. Bowes subsequently left Dundee and went from town to town, preaching in the open air or wherever he could gather a congregation, but he always declined to take part in a service at which money was taken, as he could not think of 'saddling the gospel with a collection.' He was several times prosecuted for street preaching, and often suffered privations in his journeyings. He was an earnest and vigorous platform speaker, ever ready to combat with socialists, freethinkers, or Roman catholics. With like ardour he entered into the advocacy of temperance and of peace, and in 1848 was one of the representatives of England at the Brussels Peace congress. During the greater portion of his life he refused to accept a salary for his ministrations, and he seems to have supported himself and family chiefly by the sale of his own tracts and books. He died at Dundee on 23 Sept. 1874, aged 70.

His publications consist of some 220 tracts; two series of magazines—the 'Christian Magazine' and the 'Truth Promoter'—issued between 1842 and 1874; pamphlets on 'The Errors of the Church of Rome,' 'Mormonism exposed,' 'Second Coming of Christ,' 'The Ministry,' &c. ; discussions with Lloyd Jones, G. J. Holyoake, Joseph Barker, C. Southwell, W. Woodman, and T. H. Milner; a volume on 'Christian Union' (1835, 310 pages); a translation by himself of the New Testament (1870); and his 'Autobiography' (1872). His son, Robert Aitken Bowes, was editor of the 'Bolton Guardian,' and died on 7 Nov. 1879, aged 42.

[Autobiography or History of the Life of John Bowes, 1872; Alliance News, 10 Oct. 1874; G. J. Holyoake's History of Co-operation, i. 326; Old South-East Lancashire, 1880, p. 40.]

BOWES, MARMADUKE (d. 1585), catholic martyr, is described as a substantial Yorkshire yeoman, of Angram Grange, near Appleton, in Cleveland. He was much divided on religious questions, but refused to declare himself a catholic, although he sympathised strongly with the catholic cause. According to the recollections of Grace, wife of Sir Ralph Babthorpe of Babthorpe, Yorkshire, Bowes was a married man, and 'kept a schoolmaster to teach his children.' The tutor, himself a catholic, was arrested and apostatised. The fellow thereupon reported to the council at York that Bowes, who, according to catholic testimony, was 'no catholic, but a poor schismatic,' was in the habit of entertaining catholic priests. Bowes was summoned to answer this complaint, and was ordered to appear at the August assizes of 1585. There he was indicted, condemned, and hanged, 'and, as it was reported, in his boots and spurs as he came to the town. He died very willingly and professed his faith [i.e. was openly converted to catholicism], with great repentance that he had lived in schism.' He suffered on 17 Nov. 1585 under the recent statute (27 Eliz.) against harbouring priests. Hugh Taylor, a seminary priest, who had stayed with him some time previously, was hanged about the same time.

[Morris's Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers, i. 244, iii. passim; Dodd's Church History, ii. 154; Challoner's Missionary Priests, i. 85.]

BOWES, Sir MARTIN (1500?–1566), lord mayor of London and sub-treasurer of the Mint, was son and heir of Thomas Bowes of York. Early in life he became a wellknown jeweller and goldsmith in London, and had large transactions with the Mint. In 1530 he acted as deputy for Robert Amadas, deputy of Lord Mountjoy, 'keeper of the exchange,' and in April 1533 received a grant of the office of master and worker of the king's moneys, and keeper of the change in the Tower of London with his friend Ralph Rowlet 'in survivorship.' Strype states that in January 1550-1 he surrendered the post of sub-treasurer of the Mint, and was found to be 10,000l. in debt to the king. But the government were well enough satisfied with 'his honest and faithful managery of his place 'to grant him an annuity of 200 marks in addition to the pension of 66l. 13s. 4d. already granted him by Henry VIII. He was an alderman of the city, and was elected sheriff of London in 1540 and lord mayor in 1545. In June 1546 he examined the reputed heretic Anne Askew [q. v.] in the Guildhall, and committed her to the Counter (Narratives of the Reformation, Camd. Soc. pp. 40-1). He was a liveryman of the Goldsmiths' Company, and was a constant guest at the feasts of the other city companies, and a generous benefactor to his own company. He bequeathed to the latter the houses in Lombard Street where Messrs. Glyn's banking-house now stands.

Bowes died on 4 Aug. 1566, and was buried in the church of St. Mary Woolnoth, Lombard Street, beneath 'a goodly marble close tombe under the communion table.' By his will dated 20 Sept. 1562 he left lands to discharge the ward of Langbourne 'of all fiftenes to bee granted to the king by parliament,'