James Bowden

Partner in Campbell, Bowden with Charles Campbell (q.v.). Although he died c. 1821, he was shown in the 1825 registration as the owner with Charles Campbell of the enslaved people on the Dunrobin estate in Berbice, British Guiana.

1. Will of James Bowden of Bedford Square [made at his lodgings in Bristol in 1820] proved 07/09/1821. In the will he allocated as much as was required to bring up to £20,000 the amount held by the trustees of his marriage settlement of February 1813 with his wife Clara nee Wylde, once they had realised the securities already in their possession. The rest of his personal estate he left to Clara Bowden and his son John as trustees for the benefit of Clara during her life and then to be equally divided among his children 'but I hereby direct that my dear son Alfred (whom it has pleased God to afflict with disease which may and probably will prevent him from earning a comfortable subsistence)' should have a double portion subject to the discretion of the trustees. He explained that he could not be more precise about the provisions of his will pending the present liquidation of the affairs of Campbell, Bowden of London and Collings and Maingy in Rotterdam, 'in both of which I have an interest' and of both of which he was a founder. He encouraged his executors and trustees to leave his capital in the firms subject to a minimum 5% return, and asked that his son John be admitted as a partner in Rotterdam.

2. The partnership of Campbell, Bowden (Charles Campbell, William Collings and Thomas Maingy) failed in 1826.

3. Vere Langford Oliver shows a memorial to James Bowden merchant of the City of London who died on Barbados 04/03/1821.

1. PROB 11/1647/389.

2. London Gazette 18319 02/01/1827 p. 10.

3. Vere Langford Oliver, The monumental inscriptions in the churches and churchyards of the island of Barbados (1915) No. 11.