Matthew Bowden correspondence with Charles Cox and Son, London, England, 14 May 1808-11 January 1814

MLMSS 4001

fonds

1808-1814

918205

Microfilm : CY 3823, frames 1-53

1 box of textual material

Matthew Bowden, ca. 1779-1814, was commissioned on 14 January 1803 as a civil assistant surgeon to accompany Lieutenant-Governor Collins' expedition to found a settlement at Port Phillip. He sailed on the ship the Ocean and accompanied Collins when the settlement was transferred to Hobart Town, landing at Frederick Henry Bay on 12 February 1804. In the early years of the new colony, Bowden played a prominent role in treating the sick and in attending to all matters of health. In March 1810 he attended Collins at his death, and later that same year was appointed first assistant surgeon of the civil medical establishment in Hobart. Governor Macquarie, impressed by Bowden's record, granted him 500 acres on the Derwent and appointed him principal surgeon in November 1811. Macquarie's assessment of Bowden altered drastically, when, on later visiting Hobart, he was shocked to find the Civil Hospital in very bad order and Bowden 'a man of dissolute habits, prematurely old'. Bowden died on 23 October 1814

Relates to business transactions, with reference to Lieutenant-Governor Collins, including a description of his death in a letter dated 30 March 1810

Information transferred from Manuscripts Leaf Catalogue No. 1 (4-220C) as part of the eRecords Project, 2010-2011