Joseph Bowring was born in Newport,Shropshire in the summer of 1859, the 7th child of fishmonger, fruiterer,confectioner and game & horse dealer Thomas & Mary Bowring.
Thomas & Mary had 8 children and they lived in St.Marys Street, Newport where Thomas had his shop.
On 8 August 1874 Joseph appeared at Stafford Crown Court where he was found guilty of game trespass & fined 5/- & costs.A few weeks later on 12th September he was again found guilty of the same offence & fines 20/- & costs.
On 20 August 1877 he was found guilty of being drunk & fined 5/- at Stafford.
On 8 November he was found guilty of causing a breach of the peace & ordered to find surety. The judge probably took into account the fact that Joe would soon be married & hoped that this would have an effect on him.
On 10 December 1877, 18 year old Joe married 16 year old Eliza Jarvis in Ironbridge. However 8 days later Joe was in court again, this time in Newport where he was charged with 3 charges of assault & drunkenness. The assault charges were dropped as the case was compromised but Joe was found guilty on 2 charges of drunkenness & fined 40/- & costs.
On 24th September 1878 Joe was jailed for 28 days for drunkenness.
In June 1879 Joe & Eliza became parents for the first time when daughter Elizabeth Bowring was born in Newport.
Summer 1879: St.Marys St,Newport with Bowrings fishmongers (the awning on the right)
On 24th February 1880 drunkenness was again the conviction as he was fined 40/- & costs. Two weeks later he was charged with a breach of the peace & bound over.
On 25th January 1881 Joe was ordered to find surety again after being found guilty of a breach of the peace and on 12 July he was convicted of being drunk & ordered to pay 40/- & costs. On 18th October he was found guilty of obstructing a footpath & was fined 2/6 & costs.
In January 1882 daughter Elizabeth was joined by a son Samuel in Newport & a month later Joe was bound over again at Stafford Court guilty of a breach of the peace.
On 30 May Joe was again in court charged with keeping a dog without a licence & was fined 20/- & costs.
On 11 December 1883 he was again found guilty of being drunk & fined 40/-. This was the last conviction for a while though. The family may have moved to Tunstall where
daughter Caroline was born in June 1884 & son Joseph in 1885.
However by January 1887 he was up to his old ways & on 27th was jailed for 7 days for poaching at Eccleshall Crown Court. By the 31st January though he was out again in the middle of the night with carpenter Joe Stacey, miner John Wright,bricklayer John Slaney armed with “offensive weapons” for poaching game on the Earl of Bradfords estate at Blymhill. The four men are challenged by George Bucknall, the Earls gamekeeper & a fight ensues in which Bucknall is assaulted.
Possibly in a bid to escape capture Joe,Eliza & their five young children leave their home in Tunstall & make a new start in Chester setting up home at 21,Thomas Street.
On 7th March Wright & Stacey are arrested for the attack on George Bucknall.
The next day in Chester Joe & Elizas children start Victoria Road school in Chester. Wright & Stacey have kept quiet up to now but on 21st March information is obtained by the police & a warrant in put out for Joes arrest for poaching & assault.He & Slaney are arrested the next day on 22nd & the couple are tried on the 6th April 1887 at Stafford County Court & found guilty by judge Thomas Tremlow of poaching & assault. Joe is imprisoned with hard labour for 6 months at HM Prison in Stafford.
On his release from prison Joe set up a new life in Chester. He rented a property in Pepper Street & opened a fishmongers. In 1887 his 5th child Mary Jane Bowring (called Polly) was born in Chester. The fish mongering business in Victorian Chester was a competitive one. Families had established businesses in the city and didn`t take kindly to a new rival. There were many cases of fights between the fish hawkers in their carts from various firms and the Bowrings were no exception. One of Bowrings employees Bill Gregg was arrested for getting into a fight with2 other rival fish hawkers and Joes wife Eliza was attacked by another fish seller Mary McCormack while she was watching a football match in Hoole.
Now based in Chester Joe increased his interest in trotting horses.One of his first horses to race was the horse Bedford bought in Chester for £10 which soon won a £100 handicap at Aintree ridden by novice Joe Kelly. Joe also started dealing in horses at Chester fair & at one such fair in 1890 he sold a horse to market gardener George Taylor for 10 guineas telling Taylor “shes a good goer”.The horse however would not go & Taylor went back to visit Joe. Joe is apologetic & tells Taylor to “keep it quiet,don`t tell anybody & I will get you in a week or so out of Wales”. A week later Joe has only made it as far as St.Anne Street,Chester where he buys a bay horse for £4 & sends it onto Taylor.This horse though is according to Taylor worse than the first & he takes it back to Joe demanding his money back.This time though Joe gets angry & offering to fight Taylor, the market gardener leaves the horse there & returns to his home in Chapel St, Boughton only to find the same horse tied to his gate.George Taylor takes Joe to court where Joe is found guilty of horse swindling & has to pay to avoid jail again.
By 1891 Joe & Eliza & 5 of their 6 children were living at 4,Lees Buildings, Princess Street by the side of the Town Hall in the centre of Chester.Eliza`s sister lived with them as a domestic servant as well as Joes father Thomas Bowring & one of Joes employees Walter Smith who lodged with them. Their young daughter Harriett lived for a time round the corner in Parrys Court with the Kynaston family. Joe also had a shop in the Market Hall in Chester.
In the same year Joe is arrested in the centre of Chester for driving a pony & trap in the midst of a dense crowd “knocking people down & causing great obstruction”.Joe is drunk & a cab with which his trap collided was damaged. After a night in the cells he is fined 20s & costs at Chester police court with the option of a months imprisonment.
The following year Joe was arrested again at the Union Hall after a night out. He & friend Edmund Evans were drunk & fighting. When a police arrives the two men forget their own fight & start on the policeman instead. Joe boxes his ear & kicks him while Evans punches him in the chest. Assistance is called & both men are arrested. Two days later Joe appears in Chester police court again & is fined 10s & costs or 14 days hard labour.
Throughout the next few years business in Chester went well for Joe & the family business became one of the most established in the city and in 1893 he gets more deeply involved in racing trotting horses. His horse Bedford comes 2nd in the Open handicap at Aintree and another “Rugeley” races at Aintree & finishes 2nd in a principal race at Alexandra Park in Manchester. In the same year Joe is stopped in Watergate Street,Chester for driving a 2 wheeled gig without a licence. Joe says he didn`t know he needed a licence as he just used the gig for business.In court he is again fined 10s & costs.
The summer of 1894 was busy for Joe as he raced his horses throughout north west England. His horse Ms.F races and comes 2nd at Aintree & Dun Jack wins at New Barns.His best horse however is “Lady Combermere”.This mare & her jockey Thomas Smallwood are a formidable combination, winning races at New Barns, Manchester to earn Joe £45 in one day. This would be about the amount an agricultual labourer earned in a whole year in 1894. News of “Lady Combermere”s speed spreads over the next months and on 16th July 1894 4000 people attend Manchester racecourse as Joes horse driven by Smallwood trots 20 miles in 1 hour 11 seconds. Despite an English summer weather downpour making puddles on the track & worries that the attempt will be forfeited the rain stops & the race is run although it is still windy. Halfway through Joe himself places a bet of £100 at 3-1 that it will complete the course within the hour. It just fails by 11 seconds but succeeds in breaking all British trotting records from 3 to 20 miles.
In the glory of this victory Lady Combermere is invited to race over in Dublin at the Ashtown horse show. Joe makes the journey over despite his father Thomas dying in Newport a few days before. The mare wins both her races winning Joe £30.
One year later on 10th June 1895 Joe & Thomas Smallwood are back in Manchester as Lady Combermere becomes the first horse in the world to trot 20 miles inside 1 hour.
Throughout the next couple of years Joe has success with his horses”Dun Jack”, “Dick G”,”Jenny Jones””Savoyard” & “Phyllis Wilkes”.
One notable race was the appearance of Joes “Dorothy” at the Chester Autumn sports on the Roodee in the race for horses used in business in the city. “Dorothy” wins with “ridiculous ease”.
Around this time Joes son Samuel starts his riding career though his first races are as a jockey for the Liverpudlian owner Tom Knowles.
Off the track Joe is also racing & in August 1895 he is arrested for driving a horse furiously down Brook Street,Chester at 2pm. According to police Joe drove a pony & light trap with rubber tyres down the newly paved wooden street at 18 miles per hour nearly running over 2 men & all other traffic had to be stopped to let him pass. The prosecution says that Joe is “continually driving furiously”. In his defence a butcher called Rowe said it couldn`t have been Joe as he was out of town for the day.Joe is again fined 10s & costs or 14 days hard labour.
Until the dawn breaks 