Thomas Bowles

Thomas Bowles (died 1773) was a Church of England priest. He is notable for a controversy in which he was appointed to two parishes in Wales where hardly any parishioners spoke English, despite the fact that Bowles spoke no Welsh.

Early life Bowles was born at Lower Donhead St. Andrews, Wiltshire on 23 December 1694, the son of Reverend Matthew and Elizabeth Bowles.

Ministry in England

Bowles was a graduate of Magdalen College, Oxford. He followed his father into the church, being ordained deacon on 16 June 1717 and priest on 24 May 1719. and was made Rector of two parishes on Anglesey: St Beuno, Trefdraeth and St Cwyfan, Llangwyfan. In August he also resigned his absentee rectorates of Tubney and Aston Tirrold.

The churchwardens of Trefdraeth, Richard Williams and Hugh Williams, brought a prosecution under ecclesiastical law.

Ecclesiastical court case The Court of Arches took evidence on the case in May 1770,

Family Bowles married Elizabeth Lisle of Evenley, Northamptonshire on 6 July 1727. Elizabeth bore Bowles a son, William Thomas Bowles, in 1728 and a daughter, Catherine, in 1733;

William Thomas Bowles went on to be Vicar of King's Sutton, Northamptonshire 1760–73 and also Rector of Uphill and Brean in Somerset. Their children included:

William Lisle Bowles (1762–1850), He was ordained priest in 1792, and was known also a poet and critic. Henry Bowles (1765–1804), physician. Amy (1769–1859), married firstly in 1787 Peregrine Bingham the elder (died 1826), and was mother of Peregrine Bingham the younger. She married, secondly, Richard Williams. Sarah (1772–1843) married William Burlton. Their second son Philip Bowles Burlton was killed in Assam in 1829, in an incident that provoked the Anglo-Khasi War. Frances (died 1848) married Edward Lambert (1749–1818), a cleric. Margaret, married the Rev. Christopher Erle and was mother of William Erle.

A daughter Mary died aged 8 in 1773.