William Bowles was born in Somersetshire, England in the 1780's where he married and started a family, possibly in Wiltshire, as later in Canada one of his children gave his birthplace as Salisbury, England.  They seem to have arrived in Eramosa township in Wellington county in the 1830's as the earliest records for the family are the marriages of three of his daughters in 1838 and 1839.  Two of the daughter's married Scarrow brothers from the farm bordering theirs to the West.  No mention is made of his wife's name and he is recorded as a widower in the 1851 census.  He remarried in 1860 to Agnes Matthews and passed away in 1874 at age 95. 

For some other Bowles in Eramosa not yet connected up see also Other Bowles in Eramosa.