Bowness and Bowness, is there a link?

[Beerman]

I know this topic is a "long shot" and I'm sorry for, and not a little embarrassed at, getting my names mixed and causing confusion from the start. However, I'm already the wiser within a few hours of posting and truly grateful to all and hopeful I've not caused too much trouble and that I may be forgiven for my laxity.
My grandmother, b1886, was adopted and spent much of her life searching and died knowing no more than what was on her birth certificate. The advent of the internet made solving this century long mystery possible and I soon worked back as far as a marriage in 1804 between a Thomas Bowness and an Ann Todd. Of this Thomas I learned only that he was a mariner, ship owner and native of London and left this on the shelf for occasional review.
With more information found on the web, increasingly common factors appeared to connect my Thomas Bowness and the fishing tackle family in London. Initially it was only that my Thomas had children called Susannah, Mary, George, Caroline and Thomas, as had potential parents Thomas and Susannah named theirs and their son George, in turn, did too. Searches of the London Gazette produced other lifestyle similarities in terms of legal wrangling and financial difficulties in both these Bowness families while no other branch of my family ever faced such matters. They both wed by licence, not banns and potential brother George indentured his son Thomas to become a mariner. as was my Thomas.
All these could be coincidence, but as time goes on the number of coincidences increase while finding nothing to indicate the contrary.

Eric. 

 

[avm228]

No need to apologise

I'd suggest your next step might be to order the Trinity House petition of Ann BOWNESS, 36, widow of Thomas, of Bishop Auckland, dated 1819.

See here for how to order the document from the Society of Genealogists:

http://tinyurl.com/ok96kb6

[Beerman]

Yes, thank you for that, I've got the paperwork done.
This has to be the best lead in a very long time.
Thanks to everyone.

[Beerman]

I'd suggest your next step might be to order the Trinity House petition of Ann BOWNESS, 36, widow of Thomas, of Bishop Auckland, dated 1819.

See here for how to order the document from the Society of Genealogists:

http://tinyurl.com/ok96kb6

The petition duly arrived, with a copy of a letter from Ship, Duchess of York at Buenos Ayres, with detail of an event that resulted in Thomas Bowness being lost at sea on 5th May, 1819. The petition contained information that Thomas Bowness had served as "a regular apprentice in the North Country Coal Trade" and that he was "Commander on board the Ship Barbara & Ann in the Foriegn Trade, of which Ship Thomas Thompson Todd & he were owners and served in that Capacity for Twelve Years." His last voyage on that ship, a 133 ton brig built by J Brewis in 1801 at Sunderland, was also recorded as from the Mediterranean to Bristol in 1813. Lloyds Registers of the period list him as T. Bonness.

So substantial progress, the next objective is to find his birth to rule in or out his potential parentage. I have been informed of an "Apprentice tax return" of 18th May, 1793 showing a Thomas Bowness apprenticed to a master called Saml. Strode, of High Holborn Co of Middx, Oil man, so who was he and what was the company?
I'm also told somewhere there is a register of apprentices sent to merchant ships during this period, but might that only have been of the poor and destitute?

Any further information, advice or suggestion will be gladly received.

Eric.



 

[nwquinn]

There does seem to be a link between Bowness & Bowness and those of Bishop Auckland.

Mary Bowness (b.1768) daughter of Thomas Bowness and Susannah Gorman married Thomas Bond. Thomas Bond became a fairly well-established fishing tackle maker himself and conducted business at Crooked Lane, and then later 62 Cannon Street, London. I am descended through Thomas and Mary's daughter Agnes Bond. Where the link emerges is that Thomas Bond's will of 1830 includes a bequest - "unto Ann Bowness of Bishop Auckland, widow the sum of nineteen guineas of like lawful money".

I knew Thomas Bond's father-in-law was a Bowness, so thought this was likely to be a relation but wasn't sure as this modest bequest was in amongst other bequests to servants and workmen, rather than family. It is also small in relation to the total value of his will (in the tens of thousands of pounds).     

[Beerman]

There does seem to be a link between Bowness & Bowness and those of Bishop Auckland.

Mary Bowness (b.1768) daughter of Thomas Bowness and Susannah Gorman married Thomas Bond. Thomas Bond became a fairly well-established fishing tackle maker himself and conducted business at Crooked Lane, and then later 62 Cannon Street, London. I am descended through Thomas and Mary's daughter Agnes Bond. Where the link emerges is that Thomas Bond's will of 1830 includes a bequest - "unto Ann Bowness of Bishop Auckland, widow the sum of nineteen guineas of like lawful money".

I knew Thomas Bond's father-in-law was a Bowness, so thought this was likely to be a relation but wasn't sure as this modest bequest was in amongst other bequests to servants and workmen, rather than family. It is also small in relation to the total value of his will (in the tens of thousands of pounds).   

This is without doubt a most valuable piece of information, thank you. It compels me to believe that your Mary Bowness was elder sister of my Thomas.
While no evidence has been found of fiscal support from his parents or siblings, Thomas Bowness's family must have had other support after the petition to Trinity House. In the 1841 census, two of his daughters were school mistresses, suggesting they must had a funded education. Maybe this came from in-laws and while they were living and not just in their wills.

Again, thank you.