William Bowra

William Bowra (1752 – 7 May 1820) was an English cricketer who is known to have played between 1775 and 1792.^[1][2]

Bowra, whose name was pronounced "Borra",^[3] was christened at Sevenoaks in Kent on 1 May 1752.^[1] He was one of a number of cricketers employed by John Frederick Sackville, 3rd Duke of Dorset at his Knole House estate near Sevenoaks, in Bowra's case as a gamekeeper. John Nyren, in his The Cricketers of My Time, recounts that the Duke would sit on the railing round the Sevenoaks Vine ground, often exclaiming "Bravo, my little Bowra".^[4]

He is known to have played for a team organised by Dorset as early as 1769, but his name did not begin to be recorded frequently until a 1775 match between Kent and Hampshire at Broadhalfpenny Down, the ground used by the Hambledon Club.^[1] In a Hampshire Chronicle report of the game, his name is spelt "Bower".^[5] He went on to make more than 50 known appearances, mostly for Kent and England. Bowra also played for West Kent, a combined Hampshire & Kent, and the Duke of Dorset's XI. He played as a given man for both Surrey and Hampshire. After making his final appearance for Kent in 1788, he played in five more matches in 1791 and 1792 for Brighton Cricket Club.^[1]

Bowra returned to Knole in 1807, again as gamekeeper, and it is believed he stayed there^{[citation needed]} until his death in 1820.^[2]