John Bowman

John Bowman was an English bass and actor whose career unfolded almost entirely on the London stage during the second half of the seventeenth century and the first decades of the eighteenth. Born around 1660 and dying in the British capital on 23 March 1739, he belongs to the generation of singers trained in the English Restoration theatre, an environment in which music and dramatic performance were frequently intertwined.

As a boy he joined the Duke's Company and, from 1684, he was a member of the Royal Private Musick. According to some accounts, he had already gained a reputation for his voice while still young, and he sang before Charles II in Nell Gwyn's apartments. He was a soloist in Purcell's odes Sound the Trumpet (1687) and Celebrate this Festival (1693), and from 1680 he was the composer's principal dramatic bass in the theatre. His most prominent roles include Grimbald in King Arthur (1691) and Cardenio in Don Quixote (1694), in which he performed the famous mad scene aria "Let the dreadful engines". He is said to have composed the song "Ancient Phyllis" for Lord Froth in Congreve's The Double Dealer, although this attribution should be treated with caution.

He continued to act and sing, in a less prominent role, until a few months before his death. In 1692 he married Elizabeth Watson, Thomas Betterton's adopted daughter and a very popular actress and singer, and their son, known as "young Bowman", also worked in London and in the provinces.