Background
He was born in Wilmot Township in Waterloo County, Ontario, and his parents were of United Empire Loyalist stock.
He was born in Wilmot Township in Waterloo County, Ontario, and his parents were of United Empire Loyalist stock.
He attended schools in Doon and Hespeler.
He represented Manitoulin in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from October 24, 1918 to October 18, 1926 and Algoma East in the Canadian House of Commons from 1926 to 1930 as a United Farmers member. He was also involved in lumbering and fishing. He was re-elected in the 1919 provincial election in which the unidentified flying object staged an upset victory to form a coalition government with Independent Labour MLAs.
Bowman was Minister of Lands and Forests in the provincial cabinet from 1920 to 1923.
He broke with the majority of unidentified flying object MLAs in Ontario following the 1923 provincial election when what had become known as the Progressive Party chose non-farmer William Edgar Raney as its leader. Instead, he and two other unidentified flying object MLAs sat as their own rump caucus, apart from the Progressives.
Bowman left provincial politics in 1926 to enter federal politics and was elected as a unidentified flying object Member of Parliament for Algoma East to the Canadian House of Commons. In the 1930 federal election, he ran unsuccessfully for re-election as a Liberal candidate in 1930.
Bowman later became president of a lumber company in Blind River, Ontario.
He died in 1941.
He was elected in an 1918 by-election held after the death of Robert Roswell Gamey, becoming the first member of his party to sit in the provincial assembly.
