In the first place he attended a school kept by a Mr. Cairnduff (popularly known as "Plummy") in Brisbane-street, and afterwards was a scholar at Mr. E. D. Oldfield's Academy at the corner of Argyle and Brisbane streets in those days.
At 12½ years of age he said good-bye to school, and made his first venture in the business world at Fletcher's stationery warehouse, then situated in Liverpool St, next to Mr. R. A. Mather's establishment.
"Young Bowden," as he then was styled, left the stationery business in order to enter the postal service — and there found his niche.
His eldest son, Eric Bowden, was an equipment engineer in the Postmaster-General's Department at Hobart and went on to become the Tasmanian Wireless Inspector.
Morse recorders were then in use, he explained, either "embossers" or "inkers," and the received telegrams were transcribed at sight from the tape by hand on to the forms for delivery.
The "sent" business was punched on a Gell or Kleinschmidt keyboard perforator and despatched through a transmitter to the distant station, where Morse signals appear on the tape.
[1] As a boy chorister in St. David's Cathedral he first sang the solo, "I was glad when they said unto me we will go into the house of the Lord" and extent for the few years he spent as a member of the choir there.
In 1900 Bowden returned to Trinity Church, was appointed choirmaster some three years later, and has held the position till 1925.
For more than 20 years he was secretary to the Philharmonic Society and other musical organisations, and his tenor voice was on many occasions heard as a soloist in "The Messiah" and other works.
For 40 years he spend his annual holidays on the East Coast for bream fishing at Swansea and Swanport, and has been a member of the Derwent Bowling Club since its inception.