Ward Hamilton Bowlby KC

Ward Hamilton Bowlby, a prominent lawyer in Berlin and Waterloo County Crown Attorney for half-a-century, won the first gold medal in law awarded by the University of Toronto. A traveller of note, he wrote a book on his experiences during a trip up the Nile in 1899.

He attended Upper Canada College and the University of Toronto, from which he graduated in arts in 1856 and in law in 1858. He was a senior partner in the law firm of Bowlby, Colquhoun, and Clement, later Bowlby and Clement, from 1858 to 1903. A sound lawyer, a reliable counsellor and a trenchant prosecutor, he argued many important cases in the High Court at Toronto and the Supreme Court at Ottawa.

Bowlby was a member of the town and county councils, Reeve of Berlin from 1863 to 1868 and for thirty years was a member of the Public School Board.