The subject's father was Valentine, his uncle was
Colonel John Seymour, Governor of Maryland, and a brother named Tobias, a London merchant, was nominated to succeed his uncle as Royal Governor of Maryland. Bowles served in the Admiralty as a secretary from 6 March 1689 until 15 January 1690. Bowles is first mentioned in the
Military Entry Books in January 1692, when he was appointed
captain-lieutenant in the regiment of Colonel W. Selwyn, later the 2nd Queen's, then just arrived in
Holland from
Ireland. In July 1705 he succeeded Colonel Caulfield in command of a regiment of foot in Ireland, with which he went to
Spain and served at the
Siege of Barcelona. According to the memoranda of General Erie, Bowles was one of the regiments broken at the bloody
battle of Almanza. It appears to have been reorganised in England, as
Narcissus Luttrell mentions Bowles's arrival in England on parole, and afterward that he was at
Portsmouth with his regiment, awaiting embarkation with some troops supposed to be destined for
Newfoundland. Instead, he again went with his Regiment to Spain, where it was distinguished at the
battle of Saragossa in 1710, and was one of the regiments surrounded by the mountains of
Castile, and made prisoners, in December of the same year. After this Bowles's regiment disappeared from the rolls, and its colonel remained unemployed until 1715, when, as a
brigadier-general, he was commissioned to raise a corps of dragoons, of six troops, in
Berkshire,
Hampshire, and
Buckinghamshire, to rendezvous at
Reading. This corps became the
12th Royal Lancers. In 1719 Bowles was transferred to the colonelcy of a
Regiment of Dragoons.
Brigadier General Bowles was replaced in 1721 at
Dublin Castle by
Philip Honywood, Esq. He died in 1722. His cousin's son
Phineas Bowles (1690–1749) was a
lieutenant-general. ==References==