Joseph Oliver Bowers, SVD (28 March 1910 – 5 November 2012) was a Catholic prelate from Dominica who served as Bishop of St. Johns–Basseterre from 1971 to 1981.

[4] He was educated at the Dominica Grammar School,[5] before travelling to the United States to attend St. Augustine Seminary, in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.

[7][8] In 1957, Bowers founded the Handmaids of the Divine Redeemer (HDR) in Accra, which was dedicated to caring and comforting the poor.

In recognition and acknowledgement of his work in Ghana, when the diocese of St. John's-Basseterre was created in the West Indies in 1971 – comprising the islands of Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Montserrat, Anguilla and the British Virgin Islands – Bowers was appointed its first bishop on 16 January 1971, becoming the chief pastor in Antigua.

[9] On 17 July 1981, he retired from Church office and, after some years spent in Charlestown, Nevis, returned to Dominica, where he lived in Mahaut in the care of his sister.