Samuel Bowden was an English physician and poet

Bowden, from Frome

Frome

Frome is a town and civil parish in northeast Somerset, England. Located at the eastern end of the Mendip Hills, the town is built on uneven high ground, and centres around the River Frome. The town is approximately south of Bath, east of the county town, Taunton and west of London. In the 2001...

, Somerset

Somerset

The ceremonial and non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West England borders Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. It is partly bounded to the north and west by the Bristol Channel and the estuary of the...

, was author of two volumes of poems published 1733-5. From the Gentleman's Magazine, to which he was an occasional contributor, it is deduced that he was living in 1761, while a passing mention of him in 1778 is in the past tense. The writer adds that he was a friend of Elizabeth Rowe

Elizabeth Rowe

-Life:She was the eldest daughter of Elizabeth Portnell and Walter Singer, a dissenting minister. Born in Ilchester, Somerset, England, she began writing at the age of twelve and when she was nineteen, began a correspondence with John Dunton, bookseller and founder of the Athenian Society.Between...

, poet, and belonged to the same communion. Bowden was therefore a nonconformist, and may be a relative of the Rev. John Bowden who preached Mrs. Rowe's funeral sermon.