Jonathan Bowden

Jonathan David Anthony Bowden (12 April 1962 – 29 March 2012) was an English right-wing political activist, orator, writer and artist. A member of the Conservative Party in the early 1990s, he later became involved in a number of far-right organisations, including the British National Party (BNP). A relatively obscure speaker during his lifetime, Bowden has since been described as a "cult figure" amongst the far-right movement, even more than a decade after his death.

Life and career

Early life and education Bowden was born in Royal Tunbridge Wells in Kent, and attended Presentation College, a Roman Catholic boy's school, in Reading, Berkshire.

In 1984 he completed one year of a Bachelor of Arts history degree course at Birkbeck, University of London, as a mature student, but left without graduating. He enrolled at Wolfson College, Cambridge, in 1988, but left after a few months. Bowden was otherwise an autodidact.

Conservative Party (until 1992) Bowden began his career as a member of the Conservative Party in the parliamentary constituency of Bethnal Green and Stepney. In 1990 he joined the Monday Club, a pressure group on the fringes of the party, and the following year made an unsuccessful bid to be elected onto the club's Executive Council. In 1991 he was appointed co-chairman, with Stuart Millson, of the club's media committee, and was also active in the Western Goals Institute. In 1992 Bowden was expelled from the Monday Club. (The Conservative Party disassociated itself from the Monday Club in 2001, and the club disbanded in 2024.)

Revolutionary Conservative Caucus (1992–1994) Bowden and Millson co-founded the Revolutionary Conservative Caucus in November 1992 with the aim of introducing "abstract thought into the nether reaches of the Conservative and Unionist party".

Freedom Party (2001–2003) Bowden then joined the Freedom Party in 2001; he was its treasurer for a short time, and subsequently was a member of the Bloomsbury Forum, alongside Adrian Davies.

In June 2005 New Right announced that it would publish New Imperium, a quarterly magazine it described as an "intellectual journal". Bowden was the organisation's press officer.

Death On 29 March 2012 Bowden died of a heart attack at his home in Tadley, Hampshire, 14 days before his 50th birthday.

Bowden expressed pagan religious beliefs and disagreed with Christian ethics, which he felt had contributed to the decline of the West. Jonathan Bowden, Nicola Henry, Katie Willow, Michael Woodbridge and Lucy Zara Directed by Andrea Lioy Produced by Jonathan Bowden

Screenplay by Jonathan Bowden and Andrea Lioy

Based upon the play by Jonathan Bowden