# A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Bowers, William

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​BOWERS. (Lieut., 1810. f-p., 15; h-p., 34.)
William Bowers Was born, 5 Nov. 1784, at Liverpool, and died 11 Aug. 1845. He was son of an officer in the Royal Navy, who, after serving in the American war, was washed overboard by a heavy sea on his passage home. At the age of ten he was left an orphan, without friend or relative.
This officer (who had previously been In the merchant-service, and had been twice captured by the French) was impressed into the Navy, out of a cartel at Guadeloupe, in March, 1797, as a Boy, on board the Vanguard 74, Capt. Ralph Willett Miller. Being immediately draughted into the Bellona 74, Capt. Geo. Wilson, he had an opportunity of witnessing the unsuccessful attack made in the following month upon the island of Porto Rico; after which he successively joined – in Jan. 1799, the Expedition 44, Capt. Sir Thos. Livingstone, employed in conveying part of the Russian troops from Revel to England – in Nov. 1799, the Gorgon store-ship, Capt. Ross, with whom he returned, as Midshipman, to the West Indies in 1800 – in March, 1801, the Juno 32, Capts. Geo. Dundas and Thos. Manby, While in whose tender he was captured, after a running fight of five hours, in which his bravery and skill were very conspicuous, by a Spanish privateer, and taken to Trinidad, where he was detained for six months – in July, 1807 (after an interval of five years, two of which were passed in the endurance of considerable hardships as a prisoner-of-War in Peru), the Achille 74, Capt. Sir Rich. King, under whom he was for eight months employed in blockading a Spanish squadron in Ferrol, and had twice the good fortune, with nearly fatal effect to himself, of snatching a fellow-creature from destruction – next, the Pompée and Neptune, bearing each the flag in the West Indies of Sir Alex. Cochrane, in the latter of which ships, after witnessing the surrender of Guadeloupe, he was confirmed a Lieutenant, 5 Oct. 1810 – and, on 5 Dec. in the same year, the Helicon 10, Capts. Harry Hopkins and Andrew Mitchell. During a constant employment of more than four years in the Channel on board that vessel, he assisted at the capture and destruction, independently of a large number of merchantmen, of six privateers, one of which, Le Revenant, mounted 14 guns and carried a crew of 120 men. On one occasion, ere, in his anxiety to hurry his men from a rapidly sinking wreck of which he had been sent to take possession, he had time to abandon her, Mr. Bowers was himself engulfed in the vortex of her descent. Although he was miraculously saved, yet he received so severe a shock that his constitution, already sufficiently injured by long exposures, sudden changes of climate, and other causes, became seriously impaired. On the return of Buonaparte from Elba the Helicon was sent to Nantes with a proclamation from the Prince Regent, containing an assurance of protection to all vessels navigating under the white, or Bourbon, flag; and after the Battle of Waterloo she was again deputed to the same place with intelligence of the result. On being next appointed, as he had latterly been of the Helicon, Senior of the Alert 18, Capt. John ​Smith, Mr. Bowers, in Sept. 1815, was sent to London to enter men for that sloop, in effecting which object he expended from his private resources, in the payment of advances necessary to induce them to join, the sum, we believe, of 60l., no part of which was ever returned to him, He was subsequently employed for four months at Shields, also in successfully cruizing against the smugglers, and for a short time in command of a sailing galley off Flushing. H« was superseded from the Alert at his own request in July, 1816, and in Jan. 1832 was appointed to the command of the Dreadnought, seamen’s hospital ship, off Greenwich. On his resignation of the latter situation in 1837, in consequence of severe family afflictions and infirmities engendered by his former services, Lieut. Bowers received as a reward for his “uniform zeal and diligence in forwarding the interests of the charity,” a unanimous vote of thanks from the committee, accompanied by a gratuity of 50l. For an account of the adventurous portion of this officer’s career between the years 1816 and 1832, as well as for a more minute detail of the occurrences of his professional life, we refer our readers to his ‘Naval Adventures,’ an autobiographical work of considerable interest.
Lieut. Bowers was an officer of acknowledged zeal and ability. He married, in May, 1832, Caroline, daughter of Thos. Barford, Esq., of Stratford, co. Essex, and by that lady, who died 25 April, 1843, has left issue a son and daughter.