Sir John Bowring

Sir John Bowring (born Oct. 17, 1792, Exeter, Devonshire, Eng.—died Nov. 23, 1872, Claremont, near Exeter) was an English author and diplomat who was prominent in many spheres of mid-Victorian public life.

Bowring early became accomplished in many different languages while traveling abroad for commercial purposes. When the philosopher and economist Jeremy Bentham started the Westminster Review in 1824 as a vehicle for the views of English radicals, Bowring became coeditor of the publication, and he subsequently took over its entire management. From the 1820s on he published studies in and translations of the literatures of eastern Europe and also of the Netherlands and Spain. In 1835–37 and 1841–49 he was a member of Parliament, where he supported free trade, the repeal of the Corn Laws, penal reform, and the abolition of flogging in the army. He advocated Britain’s adoption of the decimal system of currency, securing the issue of the florin (two shillings, or one-tenth of a pound) as a step in this direction. Economic circumstances compelled him to take up a diplomatic career, and in 1849 he became British consul at Canton and superintendent of trade in China. In 1854 he was sent to Hong Kong as governor, and in 1855 he visited Siam (now Thailand), where he negotiated a treaty of commerce with the king. In 1861 he was sent as a commissioner to the newly created kingdom of Italy. Bowring was a major figure in the translation of liberal thought into what was in the 1850s and ’60s to be Liberal Party politics.

Particularly remembered as the friend and literary executor of Jeremy Bentham, he subsequently published Bentham’s Life and Works, 11 vol. (1838–43). Of special interest among Bowring’s own writings are The Kingdom and People of Siam, 2 vol. (1857), and his Autobiographical Recollections, posthumously published in 1877 by his son.