John Bowring was born into a mercantile family at Exeter on October 17, 1792. He was privately educated and entered into the service of a trading firm in 1807. Bowring possessed a significant gift for the study of languages and learned over fifteen throughout his life. In 1819 Bowring began his own business that required him to travel throughout Europe. Quickly, his political, philosophical, and literary pursuits overshadowed his commercial activities.

      Around this time, Bowring began to publish a translation of Russian poetry. But, while pursuing his literary career, he was still partaking in political activities leading to his imprisonment. In 1822, while acting as a courier of secret despatches to the Portuguese Government, warning of the intentions of the Bourbon Government of France to invade the peninsula, Bowring was imprisoned in France.

      Bowring was a close friend to Jeremy Bentham who was a Utilitarian Philosopher. His most enduring work was a biography and a definitive edition of the works of Bentham in 1843, a project containing eleven volumes. Bowring also published political articles and poetry translations in the Westminster Review, the place to express views of the Philosophical Radicals. Being a radical reformer, he wrote on subjects of prison reform, slavery, free trade, public health, education, peace, and the decimal system.

      As Bowring was a proponent of the views of Philosophical Radicals, he tried to gain political power in order to put these views into practice. After serving in the House of Commons for many years and a member of the Anti-Corn Law League, advocating free trade, he became Governor, commander-in-chief and vice admiral of Hong Kong.

      In 1854 Bowring was knighted by Queen Victoria. Most highly recognized for the Bowring Treaty of 1855, a mission to Siam while serving in Hong Kong and China, Sir John Bowring established a system of free trade.

      In addition to his role as political activist and prose writer, Sir John Bowring wrote A Memorial Volume of Sacred Poetry. This work was not published until 1873, and it contains a poem called "The Divine Apocalypse," below in it entirety.