Charles Bowden (politician)

The Honourable
Charles Bowden
36th Minister of Customs
In office
13 December 1949 – 26 November 1954
Prime MinisterSidney Holland
Preceded byWalter Nash
Succeeded byDean Eyre
Personal details
Born13 December 1886
Dunedin, New Zealand
Died10 July 1972(1972-07-10) (aged 85)
Wellington, New Zealand
Political partyNational

Charles Moore Bowden (1886 – 10 July 1972) was a New Zealand politician of the National Party.

Biography

Early life and career

Bowden was born in Dunedin in 1886, son of John and agnes Sophia Moore. He received his education at Auckland Grammar School. After school, he was briefly with an auctioneering firm before joining Kempthorne Prosser. When his family moved to Wellington, he joined W.M. Bannatyne and Co, where he moved into accounting. He became self-employed and established the accountancy firm Bowden, Bass and Cox in 1923. In the same year, he was president of the New Zealand Society of Accountants, and afterwards president of the Wellington branch of the Chamber of Commerce (1924–1925). For almost a decade, he was chairman and managing director of Wairarapa Farmers in Masterton (1927–1936), and he was a director of Bannatyne and Co.[1]

Political career

New Zealand Parliament
Years Term Electorate Party
1943–1946 27th Wellington West National
1946–1949 28th Karori National
1949–1951 29th Karori National
1951–1954 30th Karori National

In 1941 Bowden was elected to the Wellington City Council serving one term.[2] He represented the Wellington West electorate in Parliament from 1943 to 1946, and then the Karori electorate from 1946 to 1954, when he retired.[3]

Bowden was a cabinet minister in the First National Government. He was Minister of Customs (1949–1954), Minister of Industries and Commerce (1949–1950), and Minister of Stamp Duties (1949–1952).[4] In 1953, he was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Medal.[5] In 1955, Bowden was granted the use of the title of "Honourable" for life, having served more than three years as a member of the Executive Council.[6]

Later life and death

In May 1955 he was appointed chairman of the Ross Sea Committee to organise New Zealand participation in the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition. Bowden Glacier lying on the southeast flank of Salient Ridge that flows northeast to Blue Glacier, Victoria Land, was named by the New Zealand Geographic Board in 1994 for Bowden during Sir Edmund Hillary's South Pole Expedition, part of the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition in 1957.

He was appointed director of the Bank of New Zealand and chairman of Heritage New Zealand.[1]

Bowden died on 10 July 1972.[1]

Notes

  1. ^ a b c Gustafson 1986, p. 301.
  2. ^ "New City Council". Evening Post. Vol. CXXXI, no. 116. 19 May 1941. p. 9. Retrieved 27 October 2016.
  3. ^ Wilson 1985, p. 184.
  4. ^ Wilson 1985, p. 86.
  5. ^ "Coronation Medal" (PDF). Supplement to the New Zealand Gazette. No. 37. 3 July 1953. pp. 1021–1035. Retrieved 17 April 2021.
  6. ^ "No. 40421". The London Gazette. 1 March 1955. p. 1269.

References

  • Gustafson, Barry (1986). The First 50 Years : A History of the New Zealand National Party. Auckland: Reed Methuen. ISBN 0-474-00177-6.
  • Wilson, James Oakley (1985) [First ed. published 1913]. New Zealand Parliamentary Record, 1840–1984 (4th ed.). Wellington: V.R. Ward, Govt. Printer. OCLC 154283103.
Political offices
Preceded by Minister of Customs
1949-1954 		Succeeded by
New Zealand Parliament
Preceded by Member of Parliament for Wellington West
1943–1946 		Constituency abolished
New constituency Member of Parliament for Karori
1946–1954 		Succeeded by