On his appointment it was noted by Prime Minister Billy Hughes that it was "the intention of the Federal Ministry at an early date to ask Parliament for authority to establish a service of trade commissioners which will be linked up with the Bureau of Commerce and Industry.

[7] However a decision to appoint a commissioner was delayed pending the report of Attorney General and Minister for External Affairs John Latham's fact-finding mission to the Far East, which found a dire need for Australian trade representative to improve mercantile connections in the region.

[11] With the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in July 1937 and the Battle of Shanghai in August 1937, it was decided that Bowden remain in the city (the Trade Commission was located in the HSBC Building, within the relatively safe International Settlement) to keep the government informed on developments in the conflict and to work on "measures for the protection of Australian lives and property".

[15] Wootton, who had served under Bowden during his service in Shanghai and Singapore, however found a city much changed since the war, then in the midst of a collapsing economy and the central Nationalist Government crumbling in the face of strong opposition from the Chinese Communist Party.

Colonel Alistair Clark, former Military Attaché in Nanking, relieved Loveday as Acting Consul-General in August 1950 and remained in the city until the final evacuation of the post in Shanghai on 8 September 1951.