The Face of a Third Fleet Officer and War Hero

Lieutenant Bowen

Richard Bowen is known to Australian historians as the naval lieutenant who discovered Jervis Bay (on the south coast of New South Wales) in 1791, and named it after his patron, Sir John Jervis. He had sailed out on the Atlantic, with responsibility for overseeing the Plymouth division of Third Fleet ships, which included the Salamander and the William & Ann.

In October of that year, the Atlantic was commissioned by Governor Phillip to sail to Bengal for much-needed provisions, and while the contract was signed with the master of that ship, Archibald Armstrong, it was Bowen who was responsible for the commercial negotiations. She returned in June 1792 and sailed for England in December with Governor Phillip on board, a number of returning First Fleet marines, and two Aboriginal men, Bennelong and Yemmerrawanne.

They learned about the outbreak of war between France and Britain from a Portuguese ship on the homeward voyage, and immediately began exercising the great guns, in case they encountered French privateers. Two other Third Fleet ships, Active and Albemarle, returning to England at the same time, were captured.

There is some evidence to suggest that the Atlantic was also boarded. Marine private John Easty wrote that they were chased by a French ship and fired upon, but managed to evade capture. However, a newspaper report shortly after the Atlantic came into port claimed that they were boarded when the ship was approaching the Channel. The captain of the privateer was said to have told them that he had recently captured the Active and carried her into Brest: this turned out to be correct, but there were no other published reports of the Active being taken until late July when her officers were released in a prisoner exchange. For the present, we are unable to resolve these inconsistencies, but it is possible that the Atlantic was released because she was carrying Governor Phillip, the two Aboriginal ambassadors and a small menagerie of native Australian animals. [1]

Richard Bowen’s status on board the Atlantic is another fascinating question. A number of sources refer to him not as the naval agent but the master – including minutes of the East India Company, a mariner’s will, port entry records at Rio de Janeiro, journal notes by officers in the colony and on the homeward voyage, and newspaper reports.

Officially, he was the naval agent on the outward voyage, responsible for ensuring that the ships in his division made ‘the best of their way’ to their destination, supervising the loading and unloading of passengers and cargo, and for providing general oversight of the ships’ officers in their management of the convicts. This office was defunct once the ship arrived in Sydney Cove and the convicts and stores were off-loaded.

The answer is that Bowen was both naval agent (a Navy Board appointment) and supercargo (the owner's agent). The owner of the Atlantic was a shipowner and shipbroker, and former Victualling Board official, John St Barbe, who was to develop a close personal relationship with Richard Bowen. Holding these two positions, one public and one private, represented a fundamental conflict of interest, but Bowen seems to have managed it well.

Captain Bowen

On his return, Bowen joined a fleet bound for the West Indies under Jervis, now an Admiral. Having distinguished himself on a number of occasions, Bowen was promoted to commander in March 1794 and given his own ship. Later that year, he was seriously wounded in the face during the evacuation of Guadeloupe, but continued to impress his superior officers, including Horatio Nelson, through daring engagements with enemy ships. Nelson selected him for the over-ambitious raid on Tenerife in July 1797, in which Bowen was killed . As his obituary in the Naval Chronicle recalled:

‘At the head of forty or fifty of his crew, he landed at the Mole Head of Santa Cruz, stormed the battery, spiked the guns, and was proceeding towards the town, in pursuit of the fugitive Spaniards, when a tremendous discharge of grape, from some field pieces in his front, brought him to the ground, with his first lieutenant, and many of his brave followers, at the moment that Nelson received his wound on landing.’ [2]

Nelson, who was behind Bowen and his men, lost part of his right arm. Bowen’s stomach was torn away, killing him instantly. Having raised a flag of truce and signalled their intention to withdraw, the British retrieved the bodies of their men. Bowen was taken back to his ship and given a sea burial. In the immediate aftermath of these events, Nelson sent a letter to Evan Nepean, then Secretary of the Admiralty:

‘. . . it is with the deepest sorrow that I have to [include amongst the dead] the name of Captain Richard Bowen, of His Majesty’s ship Terpsichore, than whom a more enterprizing, able and gallant officer does not grace His Majesty’s service. . .’  [3]

The London Times referred to him as ‘gallant Captain Bowen’ and suggested that he had a presentiment of his death, making some comment when passing his revised will to a colleague. [4]

The Bowen Portrait

I recently discovered that a portrait of Richard Bowen and a number of other related articles had been sold at auction in Britain, which took me back to research I was doing on him when I was living in London a decade and a half ago.

It has been dated to around 1800, three years after Bowen’s death, which must have been based on a drawing or painting made during his lifetime. The engraving included with Bowen’s memorial, published in the ‘Naval Chronicle’ in 1810, was clearly based on this painting (or the original drawing). But unlike the engraving, the background of the painting shows an English and a French ship engaged in battle, almost certainly the taking of La Vestale by Bowen’s Terpsichore in December 1796.

Accompanying the painting when it was put up for auction by Dominic Winter last month were:

‘A biographical account of Bowen extracted from The Naval Chronicle…, (1810), pp. 353-440, stipple-engraved portrait frontispiece by H. R. Cook (after the portrait offered here, bearing the same dark ‘birthmark’ seen on Bowen’s right cheek), uncoloured aquatint plate (of the capture of La Vestale by the Terpsichore), somewhat spotted throughout with occasional heavy browning, various ink annotations and family notes in the hand of George Flower Herbert, Royal Navy, whose armorial bookplate appears on the front pastedown, later bookplate of David S. Pilgrim pasted to the facing flyleaf, contemporary diced calf with gilt-lettered calf reback, some edge wear. . .’

I first came across this painting in 2008-09, when it was owned by a Devon historian, Peter Sims, who was then researching a book on the Bowen brothers. He acquired it from someone who had bought it at auction – Peter made contact with them through the auction house, and while they did not want to sell it at that time, they came back to him later and he was able to acquire it. I recall that he was particularly pleased to discover that the visible mark on Bowen's face was part of the original, and not something gone wrong in the process of engraving.

Peter and I met in London on several occasions and exchanged research findings by email over several years. I purchased the bound biographical account of Bowen’s life referred in the auction papers from a dealer. It had notes in the margin, and on reading them, it became obvious that they were written by George Flower Herbert, Bowen's great nephew. Given that the Bowen brothers were only a side interest of mine, I sold the book, which was missing its spine, to Peter at cost in April 2009.

While we have had the engraving of Lieutenant Bowen, it is wonderful to have a copy of a painting of one of the most significant Third Fleet officers.
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[1] John Easty, Memorandum of the Transactions of a Voyage from England to Botany Bay, 1787-1793, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1965, p. 192; London Packet or New Lloyds Evening Post, 31 May to 3 June 1793. p. 3.

[2] ‘Memoir of the Public Services of the Late Captain Richard Bowen’, Naval Chronicle, (1810) Vol. 23. Pp. 353-379, at p. 375.

[3] The Times, 4 September 1797, p. 2.

[4] The Times, 6 September 1797, p. 2.