Leaving at Easter 1840, he studied medicine for three years at Buckingham, but, finding the pursuit uncongenial, entered at Wadham College, Oxford, in January 1844.
At Oxford he was intimately associated with George Granville Bradley (afterwards Dean of Westminster), John Conington, and other members of the Rugby set.
After occupying himself for two years in private tuition at Oxford, he began in 1851 a connection with The Times by contributing literary articles, among them a comparison of the characteristics of Thackeray and Dickens.
His reviews of John William Kaye's History of the War in Afghanistan and of Dickens's David Copperfield were reissued in Essays from the Times (2nd ser.
John Walter, in a leading article in The Times of 6 July 1855, recounted Stowe's experiences in the Crimea, and characterised his despatches as "an astonishing effort of intellectual and descriptive talent.