Henry Bowman (composer)

Henry Bowman (fl. 1677), was an English composer musician, based in Oxford, of whose life little is recorded.

He was probably a connection of that Franc. Bowman mentioned by Anthony à Wood as a bookseller of St. Mary's parish, Oxford, with whom lodged Thomas Wren, the bishop of Ely's son, an amateur musician of repute in Oxford.[1]

Bowman was organist of Trinity College, Cambridge, and published in 1677 at Oxford a thin folio volume of Songs for one, two, and three Voices to Thorow Bass; with some short Simphonies collected out of some of the Select Poems of the incomparable Mr. Cowley and others, and composed by H. B., Philo Musicus. A second edition was brought out at Oxford in 1679. The Oxford Music School Collection contains some English songs and a set of Fifteen Ayres, which were 'first performed in the schooles 5 Feb. 1673-4.' In the same collection are some Latin motets by Bowman, and the Christ Church Collection contains a manuscript Miserere by him. In 1677, Bowman was the first English composer to publish in the above-mentioned collection the first symphony songs, in the genre later made better known by Henry Purcell.[2]