Sir George Ferguson Bowen GCMG PC (Chinese: 寶雲; 2 November 1821 – 21 February 1899), was an Irish author and colonial administrator whose appointments included postings to the Ionian Islands, Queensland, New Zealand, Victoria, Mauritius and Hong Kong.

Edward Bowen (1779–1867),[2] Church of Ireland Rector of Taughboyne, a parish in the Laggan district in the east of County Donegal in the north-west of Ulster.

[1][3] It is likely that Bowen was born and raised at Bogay House, just outside the village of Newtown Cunningham, at what was then the northern end of the Church of Ireland Parish of Taughboyne.

[1] Bowen was interested in the exploration of Queensland and in the establishment of a volunteer force, but incurred some unpopularity by refusing to sanction the issue of inconvertible paper money during the financial crisis of 1866.

[12] In 1869, Albert Hastings Markham, first lieutenant of HMS Blanche submitted a design to Bowen for a national ensign for New Zealand.

[1] In January 1878, backed by advice from the Colonial Office, Bowen consented to premier Graham Berry's plan to break the deadlock by the wholesale dismissal of public servants on so-called "Black Wednesday".

[1] In May that year, Bowen said that "my reluctant consent, purely on constitutional grounds, to these dismissals ... has damaged my further reputation and my career to a degree that I shall never recover.

However several others, including Hugh Childers and William Ewart Gladstone, approved of Bowen's actions, and he was appointed to subsequent vice-regal posts.

[16] Bowen returned to England after his time in Hong Kong and was appointed chief of a Royal Commission sent to Malta in December 1887 to help to draft the new constitution for the island.

The following were named after George Bowen: Queen Victoria issued the Letters Patent and the accompanying Order-in-Council that are Queensland's primary founding documents on 6 June 1859.

The Letters Patent specifically appointed Sir George Ferguson Bowen as Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief of Queensland, endowing him with the legal authority to oversee the installation of self-government by and for the citizens of the colony.

Several objects connected to Bowen are held in the collections of the State Library of Queensland, including his ceremonial sword, an 1865 sterling silver ceremonial spade presented to Bowen during turning of the first sod of the first section of the Queensland Northern Railway and an 1882 pastel portrait by artist Henry Gordon Fanner.