William 'Russell' Bowker

"William Bowker was an early pioneer of Kenya. He owned 20,000 acres in the Kedong Valley. He raised 'Bowker's Horse' for service during World War I."

"William Russell Bowker was born in the Eastern Cape in 1855, the eleventh of twelve children, the fourth of five sons born to the Hon. Bertram Egerton Bowker. Bertram Bowker arrived with his parents as a child of ten with the 1820 Settlers to South Africa who settled in the Grahamstown Area of the Eastern Cape.

In due time Russell Bowker married Helen Birt and they had one daughter, Margaret Bowker who died in 1920 and is buried on the top of Mount Margaret on his estate. His daughter Margaret had, some years previously married Frank William Douglass who was a

large estate owner in the Trans Nzoia where he ranched cattle and also introduced the cultivarion of Flax. Frank and Margaret had a son Russell Bowker Douglass who became a noted white hunter in Tanganyika. They also had one daughter, Margaret Frances Douglass who married Cecil William Allen in 1925 and had one son John Allen.".