The Bowles of New Ross and the Camross Area
The earliest Bowles references in county Wexford were in the city of
Wexford itself but
frequent later references are found in Taghmon parish (which includes
Camross) and area and later at New Ross. See also
The Bowles of Wexford Family Tree
See also The Bowles of co.
Wexford for references elsewhere in the county.
Taghmon Parish
Thomas and James Bowles settled on land
northeast of Camross sometime in the 1700's. They may have been
siblings, possibly the sons of Thomas Bowles of
Wexford town.
After the United Irish Rebellion of 1798, many Protestants in Wexford
claimed compensation for damage to their property. Claims for
Taghmon parish included:
Thomas Bowels
Yeoman
Camross
£18.13.11
James Bowls
Yeoman
Kemress
£29.8.6 (Kemress would
be Camross)
This listing does not specify what was
damaged but those sums are pretty high for those times. Full
List of the Property Loss Claims Quite likely
that represents the loss of their entire house and chattels.
Following these events the family may have relocated to Wexford town for
safety until they could rebuild at Camross. The only Bowles event
in the church register there is the birth of a daughter, Martha, to
James and Mary Bowles of Taghmon parish on Oct. 22, 1798.
There was also a John Boles farming at
Camross in 1798. One of the tragic events in the rebellion was the
burning of the Scullabogue church filled with prisoners. In the
trial which followed in 1800 one of the witnesses questioned was a John
Boles who stated that he had been a private in Captain Knox's Yeoman
Corps but that he had not been a Yeoman before the rebellion as he had
no-one to help him at his farm and could not spare the time. A
footnote to his testimony states "The
Boles family lived at Camross, during part of the last century. Boles,
like his neighbour John Brennan, of Castlehayestown, may have been a
member of the Heathfield Cavalry." See
The Massacre of Protestants at
Scullabogue in County Wexford
The Vestry Minutes of St. Munnu's
(Church of Ireland), Taghmon list James Bowles as a church warden from
1807-09.
ref.
Thomas Bowles of Cameross was granted a
license to keep arms (1 gun) in 1836.
ref.
The Griffith Valuation of 1853
shows William Bowles just north of Camross town with a house, office and
34 acres of land with two tenants. About 1/2 mile to the NW in
Ballyvergin townland there is a James Bowles with a house but no land so
he was probably involved in a trade or may have been retired.
William's house was valued at £1 5s so it would have been a better
quality slate-roofed two room stone house. James was valued at
only 5s so it would probably have been the basic thatched roof, dirt
floor, one room stone house.
The
1901 Census of Camross, co.
Wexford lists only one Bowles family: Thomas Bowles
(59), farmer, wife Elizabeth and 7 children
ranging in age from 2 to 25.
They had a 4 room house with 7 out
buildings: a stable, a cow house, a calf house, a
piggery, a fowl house, a barn and a shed. Along
with the Jacob Power family, they were the only two
Protestant families in the 33 occupied houses in Camross
townland, 17 of the 141 residents of the townland.
Thomas died in 1905 and is buried in the Horetown
cemetery (see below).
In
the 1911Census of Camross the only Protestant family in
the townland was a shopkeeper, Joseph Deacon, who was
Jacob Power's son-in-law. The Bowles family had
moved on. Thomas' daughter Martha (16) is a
servant for the Litt family at Clonleigh. His son
Thomas (21) is living at Raheenduff near Horetown where
he is a groom for Colonel Maxwell Stronge, retired.
His son John (19) is a servant for the Robert Deacon
family in Rathpatrick, Kilkenny.
Thomas, his wife, his mother Jane and three of his
children, John, Mary Anne and Martha are buried in the
Horetown cemetery.
Horetown
There may be more Bowles references in the St. James Horetown
registers as there is a memorial for Thomas Bowles of Camross' family in
the cemetery there.
 
Erected to the memory of Jane Bowles wife of Thomas Bowles of Camross,
who departed this life Jan. 20th 1858 aged 72 years.
Thomas Bowles died 18th June 1905 aged 65 years.
His
son Thomas died 19th Sept 1923 aged 34 and his mother Elizabeth Bowles
died 21st Oct 1939 aged 85 years.
Also
her daughter Maryanne died 6th Sept 1942 aged 44 years, and her daughter
Martha died 28th March 1944 aged 48 years.
She
is not dead but sleepeth.
Some
photos of
The
Horetown Church (St. James Horetown) (C of I)
New Ross
It seems most likely that one or more Bowles
lines from Camross moved to New Ross in the mid-1800's. The earliest
Bowles birth in the civil index was in 1864 but there are 6 Bowles in the death
registry index for New Ross between 1864 and 1867 and they continue on there
until at least 1954.
The 1901 Census only has one Bowles residence:
a widow Jane Bowles with children Robert Charles (19), Selena E. (17) and
Isabella (13) living on Cross Lane. She is still there in the 1911 Census
but with only Isabella living with her. Her birthplace is given as co.
Cavan in both but the children were all born in Wexford. The 1911 Census
also states that she had been married for 42 years and that 7 of her 10 children
were yet living. A William Bowles of Cross Lane had died in 1896 so he was
almost certainly her husband (St. Mary's New Ross Register). In both
censuses there is a Sidney E. Bowles, who also gave her birthplace as co. Cavan,
working as a Lady's Maid in a Great House. This would probably be another
of William and Jane's children. Possibly William spent some time in co.
Cavan, married there and started a family before returning to Wexford.
Robert Bowles of
New Ross 18662 Private 14th Battalion The Hampshire Regiment
died of wounds in France March 27, 1918
ref.
I have not sorted out most of the Bowles in New
Ross references yet but there are quite a few of them listed in
Bowles BMD References in Wexford.
I hope to be able to add quite a bit to this section in the near future.
One very strange one, a Henry Bowles of
Greenwich, Kent, England married in New Ross in 1844.
ref. Perhaps a local who moved to England and came back to be
married???
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