Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Stowel, John
STOWEL, JOHN (d. 1799), Manx poet, a member of a family well known in the island, was born at Peel in the Isle of Man, and became master of the Latin school at Peel. He published in 1790 ‘The Retrospect, or a Review of the Memorable Events of Mona,’ a satire on the Manx parliament and on the town of Douglas. The poem is of considerable length, but lacks literary merit. In the same year he published in Liverpool ‘A Sallad for the young Ladies and Gentlemen of Douglas raised by Tom the Gardener,’ and in 1791 ‘The Literary Quixote,’ a satire on the ‘Journal of Richard Townley,’ a book on the Isle of Man. In 1792 he printed an elegy in verse on Mrs. Callow and Miss M. Bacon, and in 1793 ‘An Elegiac Invocation of the Muses.’ His last work is dated 27 April 1796, and is an address in verse to the Duchess of Atholl. He died at Peel in 1799.
[Samuel Burdy's Ardglass, Dublin, 1802; Harrison's Bibliotheca Monensis, Douglas, 1861; Hugh Stowell's Memoirs of the Rev. Joseph Stowell, 1821.]