BOWREMAN, Thomas (1614-78), of Calbourne, Brook, and Newport, I.o.W.

The Bowreman family had been firmly established among the Hampshire gentry since at least the mid-fifteenth century, owning land in Lymington, as well as Broke manor on the Isle of Wight.24I.o.W. RO, AC95/32/78; Add. Ch. 56505, 56507, 56547, 56549, 56553-8, 56563, 56569, 56672; Add. 38633, ff. 17-24; Royalist’s Notebook ed. Bamford, 137-9. Bowreman’s father married first a daughter of Thomas Worsley (d. 1604), head of one of the most influential families on the island and, as its captain, deputy to the earl of Southampton.25Add. Ch. 56572; I.o.W. RO, JER/WA/37/5-7, 9. Despite the death of his wife and a second marriage in 1624, the link with the Worsleys was long-lasting and William Bowreman acted as guardian to Worsley’s grandson (1621-1634).26Add. Ch. 56472, 56481, 56574, 56575. In the 1620s and early 1630s he appears to have been content to hold minor office in his locality, however, serving as an officer in the militia and a judge of the knighten court.27I.o.W. RO, OG/BB/75, 218, 294; Berry, Pedigrees of Hants. 78.

It seems that Bowreman senior was inclined towards godliness and even opposition to Charles I, although his daughter Barbara married Alexander Ross, the Scottish vicar of Carisbrooke, who was a beneficiary of royal patronage and no puritan.28Berry, Pedigrees of Hants. 78; ‘Alexander Ross’, Oxford DNB. Bowreman was prepared to lend the king money in 1626 and to compound for his knighthood in 1631, but he was a petitioner to the king against billeting in 1628 and apparently refused to pay Ship Money in 1636.29I.o.W. RO, OG/BB/122; Cornw. RO, ME 2886, 2882; Add. 21922, f. 176v; Royalist’s Notebook ed. Bamford, 30-1; CSP Dom. 1635-6, p. 395. By 1640 he was perhaps gaining in local standing and in 18 August 1642 he was the third signatory to a petition to Parliament from the Isle of Wight protesting the islanders’ determination to defend the ‘true Protestant religion established in the Church of England against all papist and other ill-affected persons’.30SR; Three Declarations (1642), 5-6; I.o.W. RO, NBC 45/16a, pp. 425-6; OG/BB/426, 443. During the civil wars he served on the county committee and a number of local parliamentarian commissions.31A. and O.; I.o.W. RO, OG/BB/478a, 480, 481, 484, 486, 490. Still alive in January 1650, when he settled his estate on his son and grandsons, it is probable that he was the man of this name listed as an assessment commissioner as late as 1657.32I.o.W. RO, JER/SEL/1/27; An Act for an Assessment (1653), 296; A. and O.

Thomas Bowreman, who some time before 1640 married his step-mother’s daughter from her first marriage, became a burgess of Lymington in 1634, while still a youth, and was a burgess of Yarmouth in the Isle of Wight by 1640.33King, Bor. and Par. Lymington, 188; Add. 5669, f. 88. None the less, in 1642 Sir John Oglander, who was to become one of the most prominent local royalists, noted that the new governor of the Island, Philip Herbert*, 4th earl of Pembroke, had appointed as a deputy lieutenant ‘young Bowreman ... a man till then in no repute’.34Royalist’s Notebook ed. Bamford, 110. In July 1643 he was named with his father to the Isle of Wight county committee, that October Pembroke made him captain of Cowes Castle, and in December the Bowremans and Pembroke’s chief local agent Thomas Carne became the standing committee for the Island.35I.o.W. RO, OG/BB/484, AC95/32/169; CJ iii. 157b, 271b, 338a; Add. Ch. 56587.

Thereafter his importance in Island administration increased, but it was only in 1648, when the flight of Charles I to Carisbrooke Castle and the army’s decision to put the king on trial rendered the Island a focal point of political attention, that Bowreman overtook his father in significance. Once it became evident that the castle’s governor, Colonel Robert Hammond*, was unwilling to agree to the king’s arrest, Bowreman, together with Major Edmund Rolfe and Captain Hawes, was placed in control of Carisbrooke. The precise circumstances are unclear. Bowreman may have played a part in the removal of Hammond, effectively usurping his powers at this crucial juncture.36Royalist’s Notebook ed. Bamford, 127-9. It is certainly the case that when Colonel Ewer was despatched to the island late in the year to implement the army’s plans, he was ordered, should Hammond refuse to co-operate, to place power in the hands of ‘honest officers’ who would be ‘faithful and secret’, such as Bowreman and Rolfe.37Clarke Pprs. ii. 55; Gentles, New Model Army, 276-7. However, it is also possible that when Hammond asked to be relieved as governor, he nominated these three officers to succeed him; he did remind them of the earlier instructions forbidding anyone from removing the king from the Isle of Wight.38LJ x. 614-15; HMC Portland, i. 506; Bodl. Nalson XV, ff. 106-7. Ultimately the truth is difficult to determine. Since he had once been accused of plotting the king’s death (July 1647), the appointment of Rolfe, an agitator, might be attributed to officers promoting the trial.39A Most Horrid and Bloody Plot (1648, E.451.8); Bodl. Tanner 57, f. 450; Firth and Davies, Regimental History, 352-3. But the position of Bowreman and Hawes is more ambiguous. When they received a warrant of 29 November 1648 from the general council of the army ordering them, Rolfe ‘and all officers and soldiers under their command’ to assist in the conveyance of the king to Hurst Castle on the mainland, these two expressed reservations about the task.40Clarke Pprs. ii. 63-4. Bowreman ‘declared his judgment that his duty lay more immediately to the governor who had entrusted him, contrary to whose commission and instructions he could not act; neither was he of himself in a capacity to oppose them in that service’.41Bodl. Tanner 57, f. 450.

This fence-sitting does not necessarily imply opposition to the policy of the army. That Bowreman’s disquiet probably sprang from jurisdictional uncertainty, rather than political disagreement, is demonstrated by his being a moving force behind the Humble Petition and Representation of the Officer and Souldiers in the county, issued in mid-January 1649. This called for the trial of the king, and the execution of justice upon delinquents. It also demanded redress of a number of grievances, including free quarter, tithes, and excise, and called for radical reform of the legal system and trade.42The Humble Petition and Representation of the Officers and Souldiers (1649, 669.f.13.71).

Under the Rump, Bowreman and Rolfe remained among the most important military personnel on the Isle of Wight. In addition to his duties as captain of Cowes castle, by October 1649 Bowreman was receiving payments as governor of Sandown Castle – an appointment he may have held as early as 1647 – as well as for Brynne Bridge and Netlesleigh Fort.43SP28/63, f. 113; SP28/74, ff. 837; SP28/82, f. 275. Together with Rolfe he was responsible for ensuring the security of the area. The two men lobbied for additional resources for provisions and the repair of local forts and garrisons, and secured extra men.44Bodl. Tanner 56, f. 18; 57, f. 548; CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 43; 1650, p. 148; 1651, p. 311; 1651-2, p. 157; 1652-3, p. 13; 1653-4, p. 4. They also petitioned on behalf of the region’s poor and to secure arrears of pay for their officers.45I.o.W. RO, OG/BB/493; Bodl. Tanner 56, f. 18; Add. 33278, f. 27. Bowreman’s active and loyal service was recognised by the council of state, and he was entrusted with further responsibilities for both civil and military affairs on the island, as well as in the wider county.46CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 44; 1651-2, p. 142; 1652-3, p. 405. By August 1653 he had become deputy governor of the Island.47CSP Dom. 1653-4, pp. 112, 172, 201.

Bowreman’s influence in the Isle of Wight secured for him a county seat in the first protectorate Parliament of 1654, following the return of a writ issued to select replacements for John Lisle* and William Sydenham*, who had been double returned and had opted to sit elsewhere.48C219/44ii. Although apparently inactive in Parliament, Bowreman remained zealous in the service of the regime, particularly in investigating unrest and disaffection, both in Hampshire and beyond, but also in renovating the Island’s military establishments.49TSP iii. 296; CSP Dom. 1655, p. 98; 1655-6, p. 375; 1658-9, p. 144. In October 1655 he was given the responsibility for guarding the imprisoned Fifth Monarchists, Christopher Feake and John Rogers, while in October 1658 he was involved in the prosecution of local Quakers.50CSP Dom. 1655, pp. 374, 598; 1658-9, p. 159; SP18/183, f. 40; J Rogers, Jegar-Sahadvtha: an oyled pillar (1657), 23, 28 (E.919.9). He himself probably inclined towards a more moderate separating Independency, since he appears to have participated in the establishment of a congregational church in Cowes in June 1656.51CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 386.

Bowreman was re-elected to Westminster for the Isle of Wight in the autumn of 1656. This time he made more of an impression. In addition to the committee for privileges, he was named to several minor committees.52CJ vii. 424a, 477b, 542b. He played a prominent part in the progress of a bill for securing maintenance for a minister at Newport, reporting to the Commons from the committee preparing it (13 Mar. 1657).53CJ vii. 475b, 502b. Although there is no evidence of his having participated in debates, he was subsequently reckoned to be a ‘kingling’ in favour of offering Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell* the crown.54A Narrative of the Late Parliament (1658), 22 (E.935.5).

In 1659, as the electoral constituencies returned to pre-1654 patterns, the Isle of Wight ceased to be eligible to return ‘county’ members, and Bowreman had to look elsewhere to find a seat. He found one as a burgess for Newport, although once again he made no recorded impression on the records.

In September 1659 William Sydenham proposed that Bowreman’s company be added to his projected regiment, but unlike Sydenham, Bowreman opposed the army’s interruption of Parliament that autumn, heading the list of Isle of Wight notables declaring their support for the legislature.55CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 226; A Remonstrance of the Well-Affected (1660), 27. In the short term, this allowed him to live down implication in the events of 1648 as the political tide turned. Unless it was a mistake, it was his eldest son William, who had graduated BA from Oxford in 1656 and had been listed after him as a militia commissioner in July 1659, who was alone named an assessment commissioner in January 1660, but otherwise Thomas continued to receive nominations to public office.56A. and O.; Al. Ox.; MTR iii. 1071. Both father and son appeared among Hampshire justices of the peace that year, and one or other were nominated as assessment commissioners at least into 1661.57A Perfect List (1660), 49-50; Ordinance for Assessment, 51 (E.1075.6); SR.

A modest reprieve ended when Bowreman fell victim to the Corporation Act, and was removed in March 1663 from being a burgess at Newport.58I.o.W. RO, JER/BAR/3/9/79. By this time his son William was probably dead; his next son John was described as his heir in a bond that May and in 1664 appeared as an assessment commissioner.59Add. Ch. 56578. Bowreman lived on at Brook.60Hearth Tax Returns I.o.W. 1664 to 1674, ed. P. D. D. Russell (I.o.W. rec. ser. i), 22, 156, 177. In 1667 he presented one Nathaniel Becket to the living of St Mary’s and in March 1671 a complaint was made against him that he had seized and detained goods from a ship wrecked on the island’s coast.61Add. 38633, f. 62; CSP Dom. 1671, p. 162. He died intestate in 1678, leaving a widow, Jane; administration of his estate was granted to his son, John.62Add. Ch. 56578. George Bowerman, a Kentishman who was probably a distant kinsman, was elected MP for Bridport in 1677.63HP Commons 1660-1690.