The Bowles of Lincolnshire

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While the Bowles name has certainly originated independently in several other places in England, Lincolnshire can be said to be the home county of the most distinguished and fortunately best documented of Britain’s Bowles. 

There are several references to some other Early Bolles in Lincolnshire.

The most prominent line in Lincolnshire would be The Bolles of Swineshead which is well documented back into the 1200’s.

For much of this information I am greatly indebted to Nick Boles of London the present day Boles family historian who carries on the tradition of his ancestor, William Henry Bowles, the author of  ‘Records of the Bowles Family: Being the History of a Line Deriving from Charles Bowles of Chatham During Three Centuries (for private circulation, London, 1918)’.

WH Bowles’ book is available online on Family History Books

The other extensive work on the Bolles of Swineshead is ‘The History of the Bowles Family’ by Thomas Farquhar (1907) which is available online at Here

The Bolles of Swineshead line had branches to the Bolles of Haugh, Lincolnshire line and from there to the Bolles of Wortham, Suffolk and Osberton, Nottinghamshire and the Bowles of  Gosberton, Lincolnshire lines.

I believe I can make a case for how the Bowles of Wallington, Hertfordshire were connected to the Swineshead Bolles.

For most Bowles family historians the story of the Bowles of Lincolnshire first, and possibly only, brings to mind The Bolles of Swineshead but there were other Early Bolles in Lincolnshire for which no link has been found to the Swineshead line yet, other Bolle/Bowles in Lincolnshire who arrived there from other known lines, such as (fill this part in soon) and a few which may or may not have had a connection to Swineshead, such as William Bolle, Escheator of Lincolnshire.

See The Roots of the Bowles in Lincolnshire