Thomas William Bowlby

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Thomas William Bowlby

Born 7 January 1818
Gibraltar
Died 22 September 1860
Tungchow, Beijing, People's Republic of China
Burial place Anting gate of Peking
Occupation correspondent for The Times in Germany and China

Thomas William Bowlby (1818 - 1860) was a British correspondent for The Times in Germany and China.

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[edit] Early life

Born in Gibraltar, he was the son of Thomas Bowlby, a Captain in the Royal Artillery and Williamina Martha Arnold Balfour, daughter of General Balfour. Bowlby's parents moved while he was young to Sunderland, where his father became a timber merchant. Bowlby was educated by Dr Cowan, a Scottish school teacher living in Sunderland.

After finishing his schooling he trained as a solicitor under his cousin Russell Bowlby of Sunderland and on completion of his training he moved to London where spent some years as a salaried clerk to a law firm in The Temple. In 1846 he became junior partner to the firm of Lawrence, Crowdy and Bowlby. However, Bowlby found the law uncongenial and felt drawn to a career in writing.

[edit] Career

Although remaining a member of the firm of Lawrence, Crowdy and Bowlby until 1854, Bowlby went to Berlin as special correspondent to The Times in 1848 to report on the revolutions then occurring in Europe.

In 1860 he was engaged to travel to China as the special correspondent of The Times. Lord Elgin and Baron Gros were his fellow passengers in the steamship SS Malabar, which sank in Galle harbor on 1860-05-22 after being beached in a severe storm; his report of the shipwreck was considered one of his best pieces of work.

Bowlby's reports from China were informative and popular with readers of The Times. After the capture of Tientsin on 23 August 1860, Bowlby accompanied Admiral Sir James Hope and four others to Tungchow to arrange the preliminaries of peace. They were captured and imprisoned by the Tartar general, San-kolin-sin (Senggelinqin). Bowlby died on 22 September at Tungchow, from the effects of the treatment he received in prison.

His body was afterwards surrendered by the Chinese and buried in the Russian cemetery outside the Anting gate of Peking on 17 October 1860; he left a widow and five young children, among them Sir Anthony Alfred Bowlby.

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Persondata
NAME Bowlby, Thomas William
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION 19th century British correspondant journalist
DATE OF BIRTH January 7, 1818
PLACE OF BIRTH Gibraltar
DATE OF DEATH 22 September 1860
PLACE OF DEATH Tongzhou District, Beijing, China