BOWYER, Anthony (1633-1709), of Camberwell Green, Surr. and the Inner Temple.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1660-1690, ed. B.D. Henning, 1983
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Family and Education

b. 4 Aug. 1633, 1st s. of Sir Edmund Bowyer by 1st w. educ. Christ Church, Oxf. 1651; I. Temple 1653, called 1661. m. lic. 13 Feb. 1673, Catherine, da. and h. of Henry St. John of Beckenham, Kent, s.p. suc. fa. 1681.1

Offices Held

Commr. for sewers, Kent and Surr. Aug. 1660, assessment, Southwark 1661-3, Surr. 1661-80, 1689-90; j.p. Surr. 1678-?d.; bencher, I. Temple 1682, reader 1686, treas. 1696-8; lt.-col. of militia ft. Southwark by 1697-d., dep. lt. 1702-d.2

Chairman, committee of elections and privileges 1694-5; director, Charitable Corp. 1707-d.3

Biography

Bowyer, a professional lawyer, married the niece of Sir Walter St. John, but concealed his Whiggish leanings so effectively that he was apparently never removed from the Surrey commission of the peace. Though he supported the country candidates before the county election in 1685, he was returned unopposed for Southwark, two miles from his home, in the following month. An inactive Member of James II’s Parliament, he was appointed only to the committee on the bill for the relief of insolvent debtors (1 July). He was defeated in 1689, but regained his seat in 1690, and voted steadily as a court Whig. He died on 28 June 1709 and was buried at Camberwell. His epitaph described him as ‘universally well-read, especially in the laws and constitutions of his country, which gave him an equal aversion to tyranny and anarchy’. He entailed his estate on the Bowyers of Buckinghamshire, though they were of a different stock, and he was the last of his own family to sit in Parliament.4

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Author: Eveline Cruickshanks

Notes

  • 1. Surr. Arch. Colls. xiv. 35; London Mar. Lic. ed. Foster, 165; Coll. Top. et Gen. iii. 153.
  • 2. C18l/7/31; Surr. RO, QS2/1/6, ff. 241, 305; Eg. 1626, f. 44.
  • 3. Sel. Charters (Selden Soc. xxviii), 257.
  • 4. Collies, Peerage, vi. 54; Add. 15949, f. 3; Manning and Bray, Surr. iii. 408-9, 427.