William Russell Bowker (1855 - 16 July 1916) was an early and prominent South African settler in Kenya.
He was the eleventh child of Bertram Egerton Bowker, who had migrated from Northumberland, England to South Africa with the 1820 Settlers.
On his return to South Africa, motivated by Sir Charles Eliot's call for settlers, he sold his estates and recruited a group of aspiring farmers keen to settle in the Protectorate.
Despite his protestations of innocence, the government was keen to set an example and arrested him for illegal assembly, later sentencing him to fourteen days imprisonment and a fine of 250 rupees.
[2] During the First World War he organised a group of irregulars and raised a cavalry known as Bowker's Horse which became part of the East African Mounted Rifles.