Highlights of Friends' trip. Photo: Courtesy of Lydia Vulliamy.
Eye - 15 September 2017
From Foggy Bottom to Bowlys
Venturing to Foggy Bottom
Twelve Friends from Ipswich recently explored Bressingham steam museum and gardens in Norfolk, started by Alan Bloom, a Quaker.
Lydia Vulliamy, of Ipswich Meeting, told Eye about a ‘brilliant day out, suitable for all ages’.
‘Two of us walked ahead and went to the Foggy Bottom garden and were enchanted by all the trees and shrubs in different shapes and shades of green, whereas the other part was vibrant with colour, and unusual flowers.
‘There are three or four little trains you can go on, and later we went for rides. Some of us had a ride on the traditional carousel too.’
Alan Bloom, who passed away in 2005 at the age of ninety-eight, was described as a ‘horticultural legend’ and ‘a plantsman of unparalleled knowledge’. In an extraordinary career he bred or named 170 plants and wrote twenty-seven books.
A Barlow seeks Bowlys
Antony Barlow is on the search for long lost relatives of his great, great grandfather Samuel Bowly.
Antony told Eye: ‘Samuel Bowly was one of the most famous names in the abolition of slavery in the early nineteenth century and on 18 October Gloucester City and Gloucester Historical Heritage Society will be unveiling a Blue Plaque in his memory.’
Civic dignitaries, MPs and members of the Religious Society of Friends will be in attendance. The problem is that, despite his valiant efforts, Antony has had no luck finding members of the Bowly family.
He explained to Eye that ‘apart from myself and my family and two cousins I haven’t been able to trace any Bowlys. It was his daughter Martha Bowly who married my great grandfather, Frederick Cash, and their daughter, Mabel Cash, who married John Henry Barlow, my esteemed grandfather. If we could find a Bowly or two it would be wonderful!’
Samuel Bowly’s death in 1884, Antony says, caused the city to come to a standstill. The Gloucester Citizen wrote on 27 March 1884: ‘…all the offices and shops and factories were closed and thousands of mournful spectators lined the streets.’
Samuel Bowly was especially mourned, the newspaper reports, by ‘the humble and lowly’ to many of whom he was ‘more than a father’.
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