A Man of Distinction

John James Beresford bowman was born in November, 1832 at Queenborough near Sheerness in Kent, England. He was the second son of Reverend William and Anne Bowman. While his father originally intended him for the church, John Bowman’s bent lay more towards legal matters than matters clerical and before leaving England in 1853 he studied law.

Shortly after his arrival in Melbourne,[1] Bowman was engaged as a tutor by John Moore of Barjarg station, between Benalla and Mansfield. Here he made the acquaintance of his future wife, Elizabeth Moore.

In 1857, he began studying at Melbourne University, with a view to being admitted to the bar. To augment his income while at university, he turned to his pen and wrote regularly for the Melbourne newspaper, The Argus, until he completed his Bachelor of Arts in 1860. He was admitted to the bar in March 1861 and shortly afterwards married Elizabeth Moore. In September the same year he went to Chiltern, where he commenced his legal practice but in 1862 through the persuasions of Mr Zincke,[2] he relocated to Beechworth.

His first daughter, Elizabeth Annie, was born on 18 April 1862 and his first son, William Sefton, was born on 2 September 1863 at Beechworth. However, within eighteen days of William’s birth, his thirty-two-year-old mother passed away from what her attending doctor described as degeneration of the heart’s structure.

In the late Autumn of 1865, thirty-three-year-old John Bowman married twenty-year-old Victorian born Caroline Isabella Clay and in the next five years, four children were born. Geraldine in 1866, John Henry in 1867, Caroline Isabella in February 1869 and finally Elsie in 1870.

Bowman’s zest for life must have been sorely tested in the three years between 1869 and 1872 as death and sorrow were never far from his family. In April 1869, eight-week-old Caroline Isabella died and then, less than two months later, Elizabeth Annie, aged seven, died from typhoid fever. The winter of 1870 was particularly cruel because two-year-old John and his oldest sister, Geraldine died within four days of each other. Both children had succumbed to the highly contagious disease, diphtheria.

Two years later, tragedy struck again when Caroline Bowman’s five year struggle with phthisis[3] ended on an early winter’s day at the family’s home in Loch Street, Beechworth.

Not long after his second wife’s death, Bowman was appointed a Deputy County Court Judge and Chairman of General Sessions, a position he filled until June 1877, when his services were dispensed with by the Berry government. After his dismissal, he returned to Beechworth with his third wife, Irish born Margaret Josephine Prendergast and resumed his legal practice.

In his years as a defence lawyer, Bowman appeared many times in the Beechworth courthouse. Two of his more sensational cases were the unsuccessful defence in October 1863 of twenty-year-old David Gedge, a co-defendant, charged with the murder of Robert Scott and the trial of Ellen Kelly in 1878 for the assault of Constable Fitzpatrick.

However, in January 1879 as crown prosecutor, Bowman was involved in the controversy over the holding of the Kelly Gang sympathizers. He promised to either charge the sympathizers or release them but Chief Police Commissioner Standish did not agree with Bowman’s line of thought and promptly sacked him. Bowman was then immediately hired by Ned Kelly.

On Friday 30 May 1879, when leaving the Yackandandah Courthouse, forty-six-year old Bowman began vomiting blood and during his journey back to Beechworth had to stop several times. On arriving in Beechworth, at about four in the afternoon, he retired to his bed at the Commercial Hotel from which he never arose. Although, he was attended throughout the night, by Drs. Fox[4] and Moussé,[5] he died shortly after five o’clock on the morning of Saturday, 31 May 1879.

Over the years Bowman had been actively involved in community; he was first elected a councillor of the Borough of Beechworth in November, 1863 and was mayor in 1864-65 and 1867-68, he was also for many years president of the Ovens District Hospital board and was a very prominent figure in the Beechworth Masonic Lodge of St. John.

Because Bowman’s wife, Margaret and two surviving children, William and Elsie were in England at the time of his death, his many friends attended to the funeral arrangements. After a service in the Masonic Hall of the Beechworth Lodge, Bowman’s body was conveyed to a hearse and a mournful cortège, numbering 300 persons slowly wound its way along Loch Street, turned into Camp Street and then into Ford Street. The Freemasons marched in full regalia, preceded by the Tyler of the Lodge, with drawn sword; and the pallbearers who marched on each side of the hearse were Charles G Thompson, William J Turner and Thomas Tanswell, William Hooper, Mr J Cathcart and Dr BC Hutchinson.[6] Then followed Messrs WL Zincke and W Newson,[7] as chief mourners, with a number of the leading residents of the various towns in the district bringing up the rear.

Crowds lined the route to the cemetery and many of the mourners were seen openly weeping as the procession passed by. Over 1500 people, of every age, and nationality gathered at the cemetery to bid Bowman a final farewell. He was buried in the Church of England area, section A, grave 310.

Reprinted with the kind permission of Anne Hanson (Beechworth) : This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

A Man of Distinction - John James Beresford Bowman