The Bowood circle was a loose, international group of intellectual figures and writers of the later 18th century drawn together around Lord Shelburne, Prime Minister of Great Britain in the 1780s, and named after his residence Bowood House.
[1] They met informally at Bowood House, or in London, and have been compared to a think tank.
[2] Proposals from the circle were aired in the Repository, edited by Benjamin Vaughan, during 1788.
[3] Shelburne's patronage was broadly based, and not limited to this intellectual set, also called the Bowood Group.
[5] "Shelburne group" may refer to a faction of Whig Members of Parliament.