Thomas H. Bowen

Mary Ann Bowen (c. 1827 – 11 August 1888) and Robert George Bowen ( – 17 November 1869), emigrated to South Australia from Britain with their small family aboard the ship Hooghly, arriving in June 1839. He was a builder and contractor in the early days of Adelaide, responsible for the South Australia Company's flour mill at Hackney, the Bank of South Australia on North Terrace and the Supreme Courthouse on Victoria Square. His business was taken over by English & Brown. He then founded a grain store in Waymouth Street, which in 1867 was taken over by John Darling, the foundation of the great J. Darling & Son grain and flour business.^[1]

Bowen was born in Adelaide and educated at J. L. Young's Adelaide Educational Institution.^[1] On leaving school he found employment as a draughtsman in the Survey Office, where he worked for several years, a demanding job which entailed much surveying work in isolated pastoral areas and finally affected his health, and he resigned from the public service. He spent some time in Britain before returning, and in 1880 joined the partnership of Beresford, Bowen & Black,^[a] architects, surveyors, and land agents, with offices in the New Exchange.^[4] The partnership was dissolved in 1884^[5] Bowen had been appointed attorney to handle (his father-in-law) Walter Duffield's extensive pastoral and business interests, and on the old man's death Bowen, D. Walter Duffield (1851–1922, his only son and another AEI student),^[6] and Lieutenant-Colonel Makin (D. W. Duffield's son-in-law) acted as trustees and managers of the estate.^[1]

Bowen's wife died, and on 2 February 1892 in England he married again, to Esther Eliza Perry, the elder daughter of Rev. Charles Stuart Perry, at one time rector of St. Jude's Church, Carlton, Victoria.^[7]