The Bowman Family

Authors: Margaret Allen & Denise Noack

From at least the 1500s, the Bowman family lived on the eastern side of Cumbria in northern England. By the late 1700s, they resided in the area of Askham viillage, where Edmund Bowman served as a steward on the nearby Dalemain estate owned by the Hasell family. But the upper ranks of British society were closed to such capable people.

Seeking a more prosperous life, Edmund’s son John left Askham with his wife, Mary, and six children for Australia in 1829, landing in Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania). John’s eldest son, also Edmund, was just eleven when they left England.

Apparently, the Bowmans did not prosper enough in Van Diemen’s Land and in 1838, Edmund was sent to investigate prospects in the new settlement of South Australia. Impressed by the opportunities, the Bowmans left Tasmania and established themselves at Islington and Enfield on Kaurna land. The Kaurna were being dispossessed and the Bowmans made sure they protected their flocks from them. In September 1840, they fired in the air to intimidate the local Aboriginal people sourcing food from their sheep flocks. 1

In the early 1840s, the Bowmans took up pastoral runs north of Adelaide on the traditional lands of the Ngadjuri people. The Bowman runs included the land, later named Martindale, where the Hall was subsequently built. In 1844 at least six Ngadjuri people were killed in the Mount Bryan massacre around forty kilometres away from Martindale.

Edmund Bowman (1818–1866) built up an extensive pastoral estate to
pass on to his sons. Reproduced courtesy of State Library of South Australia, Adelaide.


In 1854 Edmund married Elizabeth Hackney and their son, another Edmund, was born in 1855. Tragically, Edmund (b. 1818) drowned in the Wakefield River in 1866 on their Pareora property, leaving the two eldest sons, Edmund and Charles, impressive inheritances of money and property in trust until they each came of age at twenty-one.

Despite the loss of Edmund, the Bowman family prospered handsomely through the sheep industry in South Australia in the boom decades of the 1870s and 1880s.2 Their land holdings were immense, and by 1883 they owned 86,000 acres (35,000 ha), with another 2.4 million acres (970,000 ha) under lease.3

Edmund Bowman (at top), Clare College rowing eight, Cambridge, 1876. Reproduced courtesy of University of Adelaide.

The Bowman family prospered handsomely through the sheep industry in South Australia in the boom decades of the 1870s and 1880s. By 1883 they owned 86,000 acres, with another 2.4 million acres under lease.

In the mid-1870s, as was becoming customary for the colonial gentry, Edmund Bowman returned to England to study. While not completing a degree, Edmund was very successful in sporting pursuits including rowing and athletics.

According to one account, Edmund sought to win the heart of Frances Hasell of Dalemain, hoping to persuade her to come to Australia with the promise of a home equal to her own. The plans for Martindale Hall have a strong resemblance to the Georgian symmetry of the Dalemain estate. Whatever occurred between Edmund and Frances, he returned to South Australia in 1878 and began construction of Martindale Hall the following year. The Hall was completed in 1880 at a cost equivalent to $6 million today.


Edmund enjoyed to the full his early bachelor years at Martindale with a varied social life that extended from the Adelaide Club and Government House circles to the sporting fraternity of the mid-north. The 9,000-acre Martindale estate featured a polo field, boating lake, cricket pitch and horseracing track with many improvements made to enhance the property for hunting. Participants from Adelaide would be picked up from the Mintaro train station in Bowman’s drags and taken to Martindale for the very English pursuits of cricket, polo and hunts, interspersed with renowned hospitality at the Hall.4 By January 1881, “Edmund Bowman commanded an impressive domain, as did his brother farther down the Wakefield … Young and single, with horses and saddles in the stable, drags and traps, a coach and four-in-hand, the squires of Martindale and Werocata were as free as men can be, figures of note in the countryside.”5

“Young and single, the squires of Martindale and Werocata were as free as men can be, figures of note in the countryside.”

The northern polo team. Left to right: Charles Bowman, Hubert Bowman, William Murray and Edmund Bowman (captain), c. 1895. Reproduced courtesy of State Library of South Australia, Adelaide.
Wedding portrait of Edmund Bowman and Annie Lewers Cowle, 1884. A replica of the wedding dress is now on display in Martindale Hall. Reproduced courtesy of Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide.
The stylish Annie Bowman (1862–1936) was mistress of Martindale Hall from 1884 to 1891. Reproduced courtesy of State Library of South Australia, Adelaide.

In January 1884, Edmund married Annie Lewers Cowle, the daughter of the English, Scottish & Australian Bank manager and fellow Adelaide Club member, Charles Cowle. Edmund and Annie had six children—Edmund, Vera, Eunice, Patricia, Charles and Jocelyn—with the first three born at Martindale Hall. Annie Bowman “managed the formal side of Martindale Hall with style”.6

Some of her graceful gowns are held by the Art Gallery of South Australia, and a replica of her wedding dress has been reconstructed and is now permanently exhibited in Martindale Hall.7

There are few glimpses into Bowman family life at Martindale. In one photograph, Edmund and his two brothers are shown lying on the front lawn at Martindale in hunting attire. There is an image of Annie standing outside the hall, and another with the three eldest Bowman children playing at the front of the Hall with a cart. Some of the children’s elaborate toys are on display at the Clare Old Police Station and Courthouse Museum.

Black and white photo of three children
Children of the Bowman family playing with a goat cart at the front door of Martindale Hall, c. 1890. Reproduced courtesy of State Library of South Australia, Adelaide.
Mrs Bowman at Martindale Hall, c. 1887, SLSA.
Mrs Bowman at Martindale Hall, c. 1887. Reproduced courtesy of State Library of South Australia, Adelaide.
Edmund, Charles and Hubert Bowman at Martindale hall, dressed for hunting with shotguns and dogs, c.1890.
Edmund, Charles and Hubert Bowman at Martindale Hall, dressed for hunting with shotguns and dogs, c. 1890. Reproduced courtesy of State Library of South Australia, Adelaide.

The Bowmans’ lavish life at Martindale was to evaporate, however. By the end of the 1880s drought had brought the wool industry to a point of crisis. After over-extending themselves in accumulating land holdings and debt, the Bowmans were forced into a fire sale of their assets, finally relinquishing Martindale Hall in January 1891 to William Tennant Mortlock and his new wife, Rosye Tennant.

Footnotes

  1. ‘The Natives’, Southern Australian, 22 September 1840, 1. ↩︎
  2. ‘Bowmans of the Lakes’, in Our Pastoral Industry (Australian ‘Garden & Field’, 1910), 57–68. ↩︎
  3. Elizabeth Warburton, The Bowmans of Martindale Hall (University of Adelaide, 1979), 111. ↩︎
  4. ‘Northern Jottings by an Idler’, Northern Argus, 1 March 1881, 2. ↩︎
  5. Warburton, Bowmans of Martindale Hall, 91–92. ↩︎
  6. Warburton, Bowmans of Martindale Hall, 96. ↩︎
  7. hcollett, ‘A Stitch in Time’, Faculty of Humanities, Arts, Social Sciences and Education, UNE, 14 February 2024, https://blog.une.edu.au/hasse/2024/02/14/a-stitch-in-time/. ↩︎