Biography- Silver Bow County, MT - Walter Wells Bowman


Made Available by:  Colin Jose

WALTER WELLS BOWMAN.  Born Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, August 11, 1890.
Walter Bowman, last heard of in Butte, Montana in 1929, was an 
outstanding soccer player and holds the unique record of being the 
first soccer player born outside of the British Isles to play in 
England's Football League.  In those days the Football League was the 
top soccer league in England.

Bowman grew up in Waterloo, a community located 50 miles north and
west of Toronto that was originally settled by Mennonites from
Pennsylvania. 

In the early days its twin city of today, Kitchener, was known as 
Berlin, the name being changed during World War One.

A forward, as a soccer player, Bowman played for the famous Berlin 
Rangers of the day and was chosen to tour the British Isles in 1888 
with a team made up of players from the Western Football Association
of Ontario.  This team did very well against some of the top British
teams of the day.  When the tour was over Bowman went to continental 
Europe to visit relatives.  This team was inducted into the Canadian Soccer 
Hall of Fame in 2003.A second tour was arranged in 1891 and once again 
Walter Bowman made the trip.  This team was made up, not only of Canadians, 
but also of players from the eastern United States.  The tour lasted from August 
1891 to January 1892.  When the tour was over Bowman signed to play for 
Accrington, one of the original members of the Football League.  Late 
in the spring of 1892 he played five games and scored three goals for 
the club.  On August 25, 1892 he signed to play for the Manchester 
team Ardwick, in the Second Division of the Football League.  
Ardwick went bankrupt in 1894 and as a result the famous Manchester 
City team were formed and took Ardwick's place.  Bowman remained 
with the new team and played in a total of 47 games scoring three 
goals for the two clubs between 1892 and 1900. From then until 1929 
there is no record of Walter Bowman.  But in 1929 a reunion of the 
players who toured Britain in 1888 was arranged to take place in Kitchener.  
The Kitchener Daily Record of April 15, 1929 gives short biographies 
of the players and the biography for Bowman includes the following 
"last heard of in Butte, Montana."Walter Wells Bowman was the second 
of eight children born to Daniel Bowman and Wilhelmina Louise Gaukel.  
The others were Ira Emanuel, Ivan Hubert, Charles Ahrens, Jeremiah 
Hughes, Guy Alfred, Byron Bernard and Clarabelle Edith Lorena.
In addition to Walter, his brother, Charles Ahrens, also moved to 
Montana to live in Great Falls. We know that Walter had a daughter 
named Madge and that the Polk City Directory of 1927 shows a Walter 
Bowman living at 437 South Arizona in Butte with his wife Dixie.  
It also shows a Marie Bowman, widow of Walter, and a teacher at 
Monroe School, living at 315 South Washington. 

We wonder if either might have been Walter Bowman the soccer player.
If anyone should be able to tell us anything about Walter Bowman and 
his family in Butte, or when he died we would appreciate it.
A book titled England, Their England, written by English journalist 
Nick Harris was published earlier this year, and it contains a lot of 
information on Walter Bowman.

Colin Jose,
Historian,
Canadian Soccer Hall of Fame.