Born in Nantwich, Cheshire, England, third son of a banker & amateur botanist/geologist, Bowman attended Hazelwood School near Birmingham from 1826.[1] A childhood accident involving gunpowder is supposed to have interested him in medicine, and he was apprenticed to surgeon Joseph Hodgson at Birmingham General Hospital in 1832.[1] He left Birmingham in 1837 to further his training as a surgeon and attended King's College London, where he served as a prosector under Robert Bentley Todd, a Professor of physiology.