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Thomas Gibson Bowles
Portrait of Bowles by George Spencer Watson, 1901
Member of Parliament for King's Lynn
In office 1910–1910
Preceded by	Carlyon Bellairs
Succeeded by	Holcombe Ingleby
In office 1892–1906
Preceded by	Weston Jarvis
Succeeded by	Carlyon Bellairs
Personal details
Born	(1841-01-15)15 January 1841 London, England
Died	12 January 1922(1922-01-12) (aged 79) Algeciras, Spain
Political party	Conservative
Spouse	Jessica Gordon ​ ​(m. 1875; died 1887)​
Domestic partner	Rita Shell
Children	4, including George
Parent(s)	Thomas Milner Gibson Susannah Bowles
Education	King's College London

Thomas Gibson Bowles (15 January 1841 – 12 January 1922) was a British politician and publisher. He founded the magazines The Lady and Vanity Fair, and became a Member of Parliament in 1892. He was also the maternal grandfather of the Mitford sisters.

Early life

Thomas Gibson Bowles was born in 1841 to Susannah Bowles, being baptised on 10 March 1841 at Christ Church, Spitalfields, London. He was the illegitimate son of the politician Thomas Milner Gibson. He attended school in France and then studied for a year at King's College London. His father gave him a yearly stipend of £90 and helped him find a job at Somerset House.

Career

He began his journalism and publishing career by writing a column for the Morning Post in 1866. His coverage of the Siege of Paris sent by balloon and pigeon post ensured his fame.

He borrowed £200 to found Vanity Fair in 1868. Shattered by the death of his wife Jessica (née Gordon) in childbirth, he sold his stake in Vanity Fair in 1887 for £20,000. He founded The Lady magazine in 1885, supposedly spurred by advice Jessica had once given to him. He became a competent sailor and wrote for decades in support of the Royal Navy. Bowles (nicknamed Jehu Junior after a biblical prophet who effected the downfall of his enemies) compiled the biographical notes that went with the caricatures. He was editor for twenty years and shaped magazine policy so that no-one was exempt from his enquiring eye. This approach made for an entertaining and popular magazine.

The targets of Jehu Junior's satire usually considered themselves honoured to have been chosen, and although the scrutiny was acute, it was humorous rather than malicious. Bowles managed to achieve this extraordinarily difficult balancing act throughout his association with the magazine.

Political career

At the 1892 general election, he was elected as Conservative Party Member of Parliament for King's Lynn and served in the House of Commons until losing his seat at the 1906 election. He was re-elected at the January 1910 as a Liberal, but lost his seat again at the December 1910 election. He stood in the 1916 Harborough by-election as an independent.

Litigation

In 1912, Bowles brought (and personally argued) a claim in the High Court against the Bank of England, in which he succeed in establishing that the long-standing practice of informally collecting income tax before the act of Parliament imposing it for the year had been passed was unlawful. This led to the passing of the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act 1913 (3 & 4 Geo. 5. c. 3), which for the first time authorised taxes to be collected on the basis of Budget resolutions passed by the House of Commons (a procedure that remains in place to this day).

Personal life

In 1875, he married Jessica Evans Gordon (1852–1887), daughter of Maj.-Gen. Charles Spalding Evans Gordon (1813–1901), a descendant of the Lochinvar branch of Clan Gordon, by his wife Catherine Rose, daughter of Rev. Alexander Rose and Janet Mackintosh, of Inverness. Before her death in 1887, they were the parents of:

• George Frederic Stewart Bowles (1877–1955), a barrister and MP who married Madeline Mary Tobin.
• Geoffrey Bowles (1879–1968), a Commander of the Royal Navy.
• Sydney Bowles (1880–1963), married the Hon. David Mitford in 1902, and was the mother of the Mitford sisters.
• Dorothy Bowles (1885–1971), who married Col. Percy Bailey.

He died on 12 January 1922 while on a holiday at Algeciras, Spain, and is buried in Gibraltar.

Mitford Descendants

Through his elder daughter Sydney, he was a grandfather of Nancy, Pamela, Thomas, Diana, Unity, Jessica, and Deborah Mitford.

Relationship with Rita Shell

According to his granddaughter Julia Budworth, Bowles also fathered the last three of the four children of assistant Rita Shell (his children's governess, after the death of his wife Jessica Gordon), who changed her surname to Stewart. She later became editor of The Lady. They were Humphrey (b. 1891), Oliver (b. 1895) and Peter (b. 1900). Peter Stewart later assisted at Marlborough House when it was used by Queen Mary.

References

1. Bowles, Thomas Gibson (1871). The Defence of Paris: Narrated as it was Seen. S. Low, son, and Marston.
2. Naylor, Lonard Edwin (1965). The Irrepressible Victorian: The Story of Thomas Gibson Bowles, Journalist, Parliamentarian and Founder Editor of the Original Vanity Fair. Macdonald.
3. Baptism: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:JW8H-RYY
4. ^ Naylor, Leonard Edwin (1965). The Irrepressible Victorian: The Story of Thomas Gibson Bowles, Journalist. Macdonald. Retrieved 3 June 2022.
5. Horne, Alistair (5 July 2007). The Fall of Paris: The Siege and the Commune 1870-71. Penguin UK. ISBN 978-0-14-193917-9. Retrieved 3 June 2022.
6. Bowles, Thomas Gibson (1889). The Log of the 'Nereid.'. Simpkin, Marshall. Retrieved 3 June 2022.
7. NAYLOR, Leonard Edwin (1965). The Irrepressible Victorian. The Story of Thomas Gibson Bowles, Etc. [With Plates, Including Portraits.]. London.
8. Reported at 1 Ch. 57.
9. ^ The House of Mitford by Jonathan Guinness with Catherine Guinness (Hutchinson, 1984) ISBN 0-09-155560-4
10. "Bowles, George Frederick Stewart (BWLS897GF)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
11. Leyel (28 October 2013). Elixers Of Life. Routledge. p. 110. ISBN 978-1-136-18538-0. Retrieved 3 June 2022.
12. Taylor, D. J. (14 August 2003). "The myth of the Mitfords". the Guardian. Retrieved 4 August 2021.
13. "Society: Clever Daughter and Clever Father". Lady's Realm: An Illustrated Monthly Magazine. Hutchinson and Company: 459. 1908. Retrieved 3 June 2022.
14. Budworth, Julia M. (2001). Never Forget: George F S Bowles- A Biography. pp. 616–618. ISBN 978-0-953-99630-8.

External links

• Works by or about Thomas Gibson Bowles at the Internet Archive
• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Thomas Gibson Bowles

• 1840s births
• 1922 deaths
• Alumni of King's College London
• Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
• Liberal Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
• UK MPs 1892–1895
• UK MPs 1895–1900
• UK MPs 1900–1906
• UK MPs 1910
• British magazine founders
• British magazine publishers (people)
• Vanity Fair (British magazine) people