Sir George Bowyer, 6th Baronet

Sir George Bowyer, 6th and 2nd Baronet, KStJ, GCSG, KCPO (3 March 1783 – 1 July 1860),[1] was a British politician. He sat in the House of Commons in two periods between 1807 and 1818, first as a Tory[2] and then as a Whig.[3]

For other people named George Bowyer, see George Bowyer (disambiguation).

He was the son of Admiral Sir George Bowyer, 5th Baronet, and his second wife Henrietta Brett, daughter of Admiral Sir Piercy Brett,[4] and was born at Radley Hall in Berkshire.[5]

In 1800, he succeeded his father as baronet.[1] Bowyer was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1804 and a Master of Arts in 1807.[6]

He was commissioned as a captain in the Berkshire Militia on 16 May 1803, but resigned on 13 March 1804.[7]

At the 1807 general election, Bowyer was elected in the Tory interest as a Member of Parliament (MP) for Malmesbury,[2] a seat which he held until his resignation in 1810[8] by appointment as Steward of the Manor of East Hendred.[9]

He returned to Parliament the following year as a Whig, when he was elected at an unopposed by-election in June 1811 as the MP for Abingdon, following the resignation of Henry Bowyer.[3][10] He was re-elected in 1812, defeating his Tory opponent by a margin of 112 votes to 11,[3] and held the seat until the 1818 general election.[11] In 1815, financial difficulties forced him to sell the contents of Radley Hall.[12] As a consequence, he moved with his family to Italy, converting to Roman Catholicism in 1850.[12]

On 19 November 1808, he married Anne Hammond Douglas, oldest daughter of Captain Sir Andrew Snape Douglas.[7][13] They had three sons and a daughter.[14]

Death

Bowyer died at Dresden in Germany, but was buried at Radley. He was succeeded in both baronetcies successively by his sons George and William.[5][7]

Honours

Bowyer was a Knight of the Venerable Order of Saint John (KStJ), a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St. Gregory the Great (GCSG) and a Knight Commander of the Order of Pius IX (KCPO).[15]

References
  1. "Leigh Rayment - Baronetage". Archived from the original on 1 May 2008. Retrieved 29 March 2009.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  2. Stooks Smith, Henry (1973) [1844-1850]. Craig, F. W. S. (ed.). The Parliaments of England (2nd ed.). Chichester, UK: Parliamentary Research Services. p. 372. ISBN 0-900178-13-2.
  3. Stooks Smith, p. 7.
  4. Burke, John (1832). A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Peerage and Baronetage of the British Empire. Vol. I (4th ed.). London, UK: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley. pp. 134–35.
  5. "ThePeerage - Sir George Bowyer, 2nd/6th Bt". Retrieved 27 January 2009.
  6. s:Alumni Oxonienses: the Members of the University of Oxford, 1715-1886/Bowyer, Sir George, Bart. (1)
  7. Emma Elizabeth Thoyts, History of the Royal Berkshire Militia (Now 3rd Battalion Royal Berks Regiment), Sulhamstead, Berks, 1897/Scholar Select, ISBN 978-1-37645405-5, p. 260.
  8. Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "M"
  9. "No. 16339". The London Gazette. 3 February 1810. p. 178.
  10. "No. 16499". The London Gazette. 25 June 1811. p. 1174.
  11. Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "A" (part 3)
  12. "Radley History Club, Official Website - History". Archived from the original on 21 August 2008. Retrieved 29 March 2009.
  13. Debrett, John (1824). Debrett's Baronetage of England. Vol. I (Fifth ed.). London, UK: G. Woodfall. p. 221.
  14. Dod, Charles Roger Phipps (1848). The Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage of Great Britain and Ireland. London, UK: Whitaker and Co. pp. 101–02.
  15. Gordon Gorman, Converts to Rome (1885), archive.org; accessed 17 April 2017.
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