BOWES ONE-NAME STUDY

Thomas Bowes, Esq.

March 13. At Durham, Thomas Bowes, esq. of Bradley hall in that county, the last male representative in name and descent of the head line of the ancient family of Bowes of Streatlam.

"Of the family of Bowes," says Mr. Surtees, (History of Durham, vol. IV. p. 101,) "an account, said to be taken from the Chartulary of St. Mary's Abbey at York, states the first ancestor to be a cousin of an Earl of Richmond, Alan the Black, who appointed him captain of the Tower of Bowes, and leader of five hundred archers. The heralds, however, begin the genealogy with Sir Adam Bowes, a successful lawyer and Chief Justice in Eyre, who married the heiress of Trayne of Streatlam towards 1310, and was the ancestor of a line of knightly rank, who intermarried with the first nobility of the north, Graystock, Fitzhugh, Coniers, Eure, and Clifford, and, what is more singular, were distinguished by civil or military talent in every successive generation. Sir George Bowes," the head of the house in his day, was, continues Mr. Surtees, "early trained to the profession of arms, and engaged like most of his ancestors in the service of the Border." His first wife was Dorothy, daughter of Sir William Mallory, of Studley Royal, in Yorkshire, from which match the late Mr. Bowes was lineally descended; and his second wife was a daughter of Sir John Talbot, of Grafton, by whom he gained a close alliance with the powerful house of Shrewsbury. He was, during a long and active life, one of the most faithful as well as powerful supporters of Elizabeth and of the Protestant interest in the North, and, when the rash rebellion of the earls of Northumberland and Westmorland broke out, his prompt and vigorous conduct gave the first important check to the insurgents. Surrounded on every side by the immediate retainers of the rebel earls, and in the midst of a country either openly engaged in the rising, or more than wavering in their allegiance to the Queen, he threw himself into the Earl of Westmoreland's fortress of Barnard Castle, and maintained a siege against the whole power of the insurgents for eleven days, until the advance of the earls of Sussex and Warwick with the royal forces sealed the fate of the rebellion." Sir George Bowes was rewarded by the Queen with a grant of divers estates which had belonged to the rebel earls or their adherents, among which was Bradley Hall, which duly descended to the late Mr. Bowes: and, in addition to the estate of Bradley, there also descended to Mr. Bowes, as we have been informed, a presumptive right to the peerage of Bray, the son of the Sir George Bowes above-mentioned, from whom he was descended, having, as it was believed, married the eldest daughter of Sir Edward, the next heir male of John Lord Bray, who died in 1621. A few years ago, when the question of this peerage was brought before the House of Lords, in consequence of a petition from Mrs. Otway Cave, who was descended from another daughter of Sir Edward Bray, Mr. Bowes, having taken his advanced age and other circumstances into consideration, declined to prosecute his claim and the title was, in consequence, revived in favour of the lady above-mentioned.

Mr. Bowes was born in 1758, but a compkint in his eyes, under which he laboured for the first twenty years of his life, and which frequently during that pe riod confined him for weeks together to a dark room, prevented him from making much progress with his education in the days of his youth. He was gifted, however, with good natural talents, which he afterwards cultivated, and one result of this cultivation was an undeviating attachment to our constitution in Church and State. He appears to have settled in Durham about the year 1780, after he had lost his father and mother, and from that time he became intimately acquainted with the principal families of the county, of all shades of politics, and was always u welcome guest in their houses. Air. Bowes was the last survivor of three gentlemen who, in consequence, as it has been said, of a wager, made a tour through Sweden, Swedish Lapland, Finland, and Denmark, in the year 1786. His fellow travellers were Sir H. G. Liddell, Bart, the lather of the present Lord Ravensworth, and Mr. Consett. A very interesting account of this tour was published by Mr. Consett, in 1789, in quarto, with engravings on copper by Bewick: we are not aware that that eminent artist has left behind him any other engravings on copper, and it may be remarked that in the frontispiece to the book, inscribed "Viewing the midnight sun atTomao, in Lapland," the figure standing at the foot of the ladder, pointing to the sun half hid by the horizon, is said to represent Mr. Bowes. This book, which possesses considerable merit, has become scarce. The party left Ravensworth Castle on the 24th of May, 1780, when Mr. Bowes was in his 28th year, and returned to England on the 17th of August following. A list of subscribers is prefixed to Mr. Consett's narrative of their travels; and we believe we are correct in stating that in that list the only person now alive is R. J. Lambton, esq.

Mr. Bowes's remains were buried in a vault in the churchyard of St. Mary's, in the South Bailey, Durham, near the grave of his grandfather, Thomas Bowes, of Bradley Hali, esq. who died in 1752. His pall was supported by the present and late High Sheriffs of the county, H. T. M. Witham and Edward Ship, perdson, esqrs., the Hon. Captain Liddell, and other gentlemen attached to him by long acquaintance and friendship. Having, before his death, presented to that church a handsome armorial window of stained glass, executed by Mr. Wailes, of Newcastle, a suitable inscription has since his death been inscribed in the glass, containing the name of the donor,

and the day and year of his death, to serve as his monument. The inscription is as follows:

THOMAS BOWES DE BLtADLEY HALt. ARMIGEIl, QUI HANC FENESTRAM FIERI FECIT, OBIIT XIII MARTII ANNO DOMINI MDCCCXI.IV. ET IN CfEMITERIO HUJl'S ECCLESIJE JACET SEPULTU8. [2]