Bowes, John (1691–1767), lord chancellor of Ireland and MP, was possibly born in either Surrey or Hertfordshire, second son of Thomas Bowes of Bishopsgate, London, member of the Turners' Company; his mother's name was North. Admitted to the Inner Temple, London (6 December 1712), he studied law in London with Philip Yorke, later Lord Hardwicke, and was called to the English bar in 1718. In 1725 he came to Ireland under the patronage of the lord chancellor, Richard West (d. 1726), and was called to the Irish bar (29 September 1725). He was appointed third serjeant-at-law (1727–30) and, despite not being an MP, solicitor general (1730–39). Through government influence he became MP for Taghmon, Co. Wexford (1731–42), and proved himself an accomplished orator in the commons as well as at the bar. Appointed attorney general (1739–41), he distinguished himself in securing the conviction for murder of Lord Santry (1710–51) in 1739. Although his colleagues recognised his legal talents, many resented his dandyism and superior airs. In 1742 he was appointed a privy councillor and chief baron of the exchequer (1742–56) and he presided at the celebrated Annesley trial of November 1743. He held many honorary appointments, including governor of the Royal Hospital (1742–67), governor of several other Dublin hospitals and charitable institutions, and treasurer of King's Inns (1749–66).
Having declared himself to be an Irishman in spirit, he gained some popularity with the country party of the Irish house of commons. He was, however, critical of leading opposition politicians during the money bill dispute of 1753–6, claiming that they had behaved irresponsibly. Given his English birth and his friendship with Hardwicke, he was the leading candidate for the lord chancellorship, to which he was appointed on 22 March 1757; he took his seat as speaker of the house of lords that October, and on 15 August 1758 he was created Baron Bowes of Clonlyon , Co. Meath. During the Bedford viceroyalty (1757–61), he was highly critical of the lord justices – George Stone (qv), John Ponsonby (qv), and Henry Boyle (qv), earl of Shannon – who he claimed were so powerful that they overawed the viceroy, and his relations with Bedford were also often difficult. On 3 December 1759, during the anti-union disturbances in Dublin, Bowes was taken from his coach by the rioters at College Green and forced to swear an oath to oppose union between Great Britain and Ireland. This experience made him even more critical of politicians such as John Hely-Hutchinson (qv), Anthony Malone (qv), and Charles Lucas (qv), who played on popular passions. He was also deeply concerned by the Whiteboy and Oakboy popular disturbances of the early 1760s, believing they heralded a general breakdown in order and deference.
Prominent in upholding the penal laws, he opposed Clanbrassill's 1757 bill for state registration of catholic priests, but was prepared to allow the recruitment of catholics for military service in Portugal. During the trial of Laurence Saul, a wealthy catholic distiller from Dublin who was prosecuted for harbouring a young woman whose relatives had tried to force her to convert to protestantism, Bowes made (c.1759) the notorious declaration from the bench that ‘the law does not suppose any such person to exist as an Irish Roman Catholic’ (Scully, 334) His point was, however, that catholics could claim no rights as a corporate body, not that they had no rights as individuals. Bowes was not a narrow bigot and could be severely critical of abuses in the established church in Ireland, such as non-residence of clergy and excessive exactions on the poor, believing that while the church exhibited such corruption it had no chance of making genuine converts.
He continued in office as chancellor after the accession of George III and promoted the publication of The statutes of Ireland (1762), in which a dedication by Francis Vesey claimed that Bowes had made the high court of chancery ‘a terror to fraud and a protection and comfort to every honest man’. B. T. Duhigg (qv), however (strongly opposed to Englishmen assuming important Irish legal posts), described him as a ‘profligate and unprincipled’ judge (p. 333), and claimed that as treasurer he had defrauded the King's Inns of almost £10,000. After the death of Primate Stone in 1764, Bowes played a major part in the government of Ireland, and acted as a lord justice in 1765–6. As a mark of appreciation the house of lords voted him an additional grant of £1,000 in 1766. He resided in Dublin at Werburgh St., Henrietta St., Islandbridge, and Drumcondra. Having suffered from repeated attacks of gout for many years, he died in Drumcondra, Dublin, 22 July 1767, leaving an estate of £200,000; he never married and his peerage became extinct. The Dublin Journal claimed that ‘No man ever filled the high office of lord chancellor with more distinguished abilities’ and that his talents ‘seemed rather to improve, than to be impaired by his age’ (25–8 July 1767). He was buried in Christ Church cathedral, Dublin, where a monument was erected to him in the crypt by his brother Rumsey Bowes. A mezzotint portrait of Bowes (c.1743) by John Brooks is held in the NGI.