Bowring, Lady (Deborah), 7 Baring Crescent, Exeter
Deborah Bowring, née Castle (1816-1902), was born on July 30 1816, the daughter of Thomas and Mary Castle of Clifton, Bristol.[1] Her family were Unitarians and she was brought up in the Bristol circle which included Lant Carpenter and J. B. Estlin. She and her friend Mary Carpenter became members if the Social Science Association and Deborah chaired a session of the first Ladies’ Conference in Bristol in 1869. Unlike Carpenter she believed that women should campaign for greater rights, rather than merely take a greater public part in traditional philanthropic causes.[2]
Castle married, on 8 November 1860, the linguist, diplomat and politician Sir John Bowring (1792–1872), whose first wife had died in 1858. The couple lived first in the newly-built Claremont Villa in Claremont Grove, and became involved in the life of Exeter. They joined the Western Unitarian Christian Association, which met at George’s Meeting on South Street.[3]
Bowring was particularly interested in education, and spoke at the British Association Conference on Economic Science on the Higher Education of Women pointing out the inadequacies of school for girls.[4] She was nominated for election to Exeter’s new school board,[5] though in fact Miss Temple, the bishop’s sister was elected.[6] She also was a member of the Ladies’ Committee, chaired by Canon Cook (see entry under Montgomery) and sanctioned by the Bishop of Exeter, that organised the first course of lectures for ladies in 1871. These were intended not only for general interest but for ‘ladies engaged in teaching’, who were offered admission at a discounted rate.[7]
Many of Bowring’s interests were shared by her husband, including that of women’s suffrage. She became a Vice President of the Bristol and West of England Society for Suffrage[8] and decided to introduce those ideas to an Exeter audience. She invited Mrs Fawcett to deliver a lecture on the topic at the Royal Public Rooms, at which Sir John presided.[9] In the following year both she and Sir John, together with the Bishop of Exeter, became members of the Central Committee of the National Society for Women’s Suffrage[10]. A petition, the Exeter Ladies’ Petition, was organised in the following year.
Sir John died in November 1872, and Lady Bowring went abroad for a while. However she returned to Exeter to resume her interests. She was a member of the platform party and gave a speech at the public meeting held in 1877 in support of the extension of the franchise to women, pointing out the particular injustice to women ratepayers like herself who ‘were called upon for taxes the same as men but had no voice in the matter.’[11] At the 1881 public meeting in support of the extension of the franchise she proposed the resolution.[12] Even at the age of 80 she chaired a public meeting in Exeter for the West of England branch of the Woman’s Suffrage Society.[13]
Her support for higher education for women was turned into practical action when she became a subscriber to the scheme for the provision of University Extension Lectures in Exeter.[14] She also became a co-opted member of the Exeter School Management Committee.[15]
Bowring, who had moved after her husband’s death to 7 Baring Crescent, died there on 28 July 1902 and is buried with her husband in Exeter’s Higher Cemetery.
This biography amplifies the Exeter references in the article about Lady Bowring published in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (see footnote 1)
Entry created by Julia Neville, September 2018
[1] K.D. Reynolds, ‘Bowring [née Castle] Deborah, Lady Bowring’, in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, published on-line at: https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/56282, 23 September 2004. Accessed 16 Sep 2018..
[2] Information about Deborah Castle’s early life taken from http://talltalesfromthetrees.blogspot.com/2013/06/deborah-castle-1816-1902-and-womens.html . Accessed 17 Sep 2018.
[3] WT 2 Nov 1861, provides the first reference to their support.
[4] WT, 23 Aug 1872.
[5] WT, 16 Jan 1871
[6] WT, 16 Mar 1871.
[7] WT, 6 Feb 1871.
[8] EPG, 21 Feb 1872.
[9] WT, 16 Mar 1871.
[10] FP, 20 Mar 1872.
[11] EPG, 13 Mar 1877.
[12] WT, 2 Apr 1881.
[13] WT, 29 Mar 1897.
[14] WT, 10 May 1888; 28 Nov 1889; 27 Jun 91.
[15] EPG, 4 May 1877.