Bowring

Bowring is a surname of English origin. At the time of the British Census of 1881,[1] its relative frequency was highest in Dorset (36.5 times the British average), followed by Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Gloucestershire, Northamptonshire, Hampshire, Surrey, the Channel Islands, Shropshire and Somerset.

The name Bowring may refer to:

The name is an occupational name deriving from the pre-7th Century Old English bur meaning "a bower, a chamber", and ing, in this context, "a friend" or "servant", one who looked after the "bower-chamber" in a lord or chief's house.

Job-descriptive surnames originally denoted the actual occupation of the namebearer, and later became hereditary. There are many developed spellings, all with essentially the same meaning, although some are common as surnames and these include: Bower, Bur, Bowerman, Borman, Bowra, Boorer, Burra, Bowring and Bowering. The surname was first recorded in the early 14th Century (see below), and other early recordings include: Mayfflin atte Bur (1280, Somerset); Gilbert atte Boure (1296, Sussex); Robert Boreman (1327, Sussex; and Walter Bowryng (1328, Somerset). The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Henry Bouryng, which was dated 1302, in the "Pipe Rolls of Derbyshire", during the reign of King Edward I, known as "The Hammer of the Scots", 1272 – 1307.