John Charles Bowring (24 March 1821 – 20 June 1893) was a

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

businessman, a partner in the firm Jardine, Matheson & Co., and a keen amateur naturalist and JP for the County of Devon. He was the eldest son of Sir

John Bowring Sir John Bowring , or Phraya Siamanukulkij Siammitrmahayot, , , group=note (17 October 1792 – 23 November 1872) was a British political economist, traveller, writer, literary translator, polyglot and the fourth Governor of Hong Kong. He was a ...

(1792–1872), of Exeter, Devon,

Governor of Hong Kong The governor of Hong Kong was the representative of the British Crown in Hong Kong from 1843 to 1997. In this capacity, the governor was president of the Executive Council and commander-in-chief of the British Forces Overseas Hong Kong. ...

, and accompanied him on some of his travels. He was brother of

Lewin Bentham Bowring Lewin Bentham Bowring (1824–1910) was a British Indian civil servant in British India who served as the Chief Commissioner of Mysore between 1862 and 1870. He was also an author and man of letters. Family He was the second son of Sir John Bowr ...

and

Edgar Alfred Bowring Edgar Alfred Bowring (; 26 May 1826 – August 1911) was a British translator, author and civil servant, serving as librarian and registrar to the Board of Trade (1848–1863), secretary to the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851, and Lib ...

. Bowring was a passionate botanist and entomologist (more specifically a coleopterist; a student in the study of beetles). Throughout his travels with his father, Sir John Bowring, he studied, took notes, and collected certain rare plants and beetles whenever the opportunity presented itself. In 1852 Bowring brought from Hong Kong ferns, mosses, and flowering plants back to England. Upon his widow's death in 1912 she bequeathed funds for the building of a cottage hospital in Haygate Road,

Shropshire Shropshire (; alternatively Salop; abbreviated in print only as Shrops; demonym Salopian ) is a landlocked historic county in the West Midlands region of England. It is bordered by Wales to the west and the English counties of Cheshire to ...

, in his memory. His sons included: * Sir Charles Calvert Bowring, Governor of Nyasaland *Rear Admiral Humphrey Wykeham Bowring He left a large collection of coleoptera to the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

. Two species of lizards, '' Hemidactylus bowringii'' and '' Subdoluseps bowringii'', are named in honor of John Charles Bowring or his father Sir

.Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . ("Bowring", p. 36).

References

External links

J.C. Bowring's gift of Egyptian artifacts
to the

Royal Albert Memorial Museum Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery (RAMM) is a museum and art gallery in Exeter, Devon, the largest in the city. It holds significant and diverse collections in areas such as zoology, anthropology, fine art, local and overseas archaeolo ...

, Exeter 1821 births 1893 deaths

John Charles William John Charles (27 December 1931 – 21 February 2004) was a Welsh footballer who played as a centre-forward or as a centre-back. Best known for his first stint at Leeds United and Juventus, he was rated by many as the greatest all-ro ...

People from the London Borough of Hackney English naturalists English justices of the peace 19th-century English businesspeople {{england-business-bio-stub