Triumph and Tragedy The life and times of
ROBERT KANZOW BOWLEY born Thursday 13 th May 1813
Members of the Bowley family can be found in records dating back to the seventeenth century and beyond, settled in the neighbouring villages of Shepshed and Hathern which lie three miles west and three miles north-west respectively, from the centre of Loughborough in Leicestershire. The records show that the wider Bowley family in the area were involved in trades such as wool frame -knitting, hosiery production and the tanning of leather. On the pre-Enclosure Act map of Hathern, the ancient ‘homestead’ of Samuel Bowley the Elder is clearly marked. Adjacent to his home is Well Lane with a 'pond' alongside - the tanning process needed plenty of readily available water. As part of the ‘enclosure’ process, the 1778 Act awarded ‘Old Yards’ to Samuel as a sub-lessee of Christ's College Cambridge. Much of the surrounding farmland was also awarded to Samuel and to other members of the Bowley family (Gabriel, John, and Thomas) in their own right. With an involvement in leather production, it is perhaps not surprising to find at least one branch of the Bowley family made the transition from tanning to boot-making. Robert Bowley’s father, Thomas, was born in Shepshed in 1788. He became a bootmaker, quite likely having followed the trade of his own father. For reasons that are presently unclear, Thomas moved to London whilst still quite young. Records from the year 1805, relating to the St. Martin-in-the-Fields area, show that Thomas (17) is living in London. He had been taken into a partnership with another bootmaking family - Robert Taylor and his son Robert Taylor (jnr.). The business was ‘Taylor and Bowley Bootmakers’ and it was located in the very heart of London. Initially it traded from premises at No.17 Green Street (now Irving Street), which connects the south east corner of Leicester Square to Castle Street (now part of Charing Cross Road).