Editing Thomas Bowdler (section)

==Biography==
Thomas Bowdler was born on 11 July 1754,<ref name="EB1911">{{Cite EB1911|wstitle=Bowdler, Thomas}}</ref> in [[Box, Wiltshire|Box]], near [[Bath, Somerset]], the youngest son of the six children of Thomas Bowdler (c. 1719–1785), a banker of substantial fortune,<ref>Bowdler, p. 18</ref> and his wife, [[Elizabeth Stuart Bowdler|Elizabeth, ''née'' Cotton]] (d. 1797), the daughter of [[Cotton baronets#Cotton baronets.2C of Connington .281611.29|Sir John Cotton, 6th Baronet]] of [[Conington, Huntingdonshire]].<ref name=Gents>[https://books.google.com/books?id=_bLPAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA241 "The Gentleman's Magazine, Vol. 202"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170216131403/https://books.google.com/books?id=_bLPAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA241 |date=16 February 2017}} p. 241</ref><ref name=odnb/>  Bowdler studied medicine at the universities of [[University of St. Andrews|St Andrews]] and [[University of Edinburgh|Edinburgh]], where he received his degree in 1776, graduating with a thesis on intermittent fevers.<ref name=bmj>Poynter, F. N. L. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/20329444 "Thomas Bowdler"], {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170319000321/http://www.jstor.org/stable/20329444 |date=19 March 2017}} ''[[The British Medical Journal]], Vol. 2, No. 4879, 10 July 1954, pp. 97–98.</ref> He then spent four years travelling in continental Europe, visiting the Holy Roman Empire, Hungary, Italy, Sicily and Portugal. In 1781 he caught a fever in Lisbon from a young friend whom he was attending through a fatal illness.<ref name=dnb>Lee, Sidney. [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/olddnb/3032 "Bowdler, Thomas (1754–1825), editor of the 'Family Shakespeare'"], {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924162924/http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/olddnb/3032 |date=24 September 2015}} ''Dictionary of National Biography'', 1885, ODNB archive. Retrieved 17 December 2011 {{subscription required}}</ref> He returned to England in broken health and with a strong aversion to the medical profession. In 1781 he was elected a [[Fellow of the Royal Society]] (FRS) and a Licentiate of the [[Royal College of Physicians]] (LRCP), but he did not continue to practise medicine.<ref name=bmj/> He devoted himself instead to the cause of [[prison reform]].<ref name=bmj/>

Bowdler was a strong [[chess]] player and once played eight recorded games against the best chess player of the time, [[François-André Danican Philidor]], who was so confident of his superiority that he played with several [[Chess handicap|handicaps]]. Bowdler won twice, lost three times, and [[draw (chess)|drew]] three times.<ref>Philidor was usually blindfolded and playing multiple opponents simultaneously, and sometimes started without one pawn. The first recorded game to feature a double [[Rook (chess)|rook]] [[Sacrifice (chess)|sacrifice]] was played between Bowdler (white) and [[Henry Seymour Conway|H. Conway]] in London in 1788. See [http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1282695 "Dr. Thomas Bowdler vs Henry Seymour Conway"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121025063917/http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1282695 |date=25 October 2012 }}, Chessgames.com. Retrieved 16 December 2011</ref> The [[Sicilian Defence#Other moves|Bowdler Attack]] is named after him.

[[File:Times-Bowdler.png|thumb|left|400px|Advertisement for 1819 edition of ''The Family Shakspeare'']]
Bowdler's first published work was ''Letters Written in Holland in the Months of September and October 1787'' (1788), giving an eye-witness account of the [[Prussian invasion of Holland]].<ref name=odnb>Loughlin-Chow, M. Clare, [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/3032 "Bowdler, Thomas (1754–1825)"], {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160306025815/http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/3032 |date=6 March 2016}} ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', [[Oxford University Press]], 2004; online edition, January 2011. Retrieved 17 December 2011 {{subscription required}}</ref>  In 1800 Bowdler took a lease on a country estate at St Boniface, on the [[Isle of Wight]], where he lived for ten years.<ref name=odnb/> In September 1806, aged 52, he married Elizabeth Trevenen (née Farquharson), aged 48, widow of a naval Captain James Trevenen, who had died in Catherine the Great's service at Kronstadt in 1790.<ref name=odnb/> The marriage was unhappy and after a few years they separated. They had no children. After the separation, the marriage was never mentioned in the Bowdler family. The biography of Bowdler by his nephew, [[Thomas Bowdler the Younger|Thomas Bowdler]], makes no mention of him ever marrying.<ref name=odnb/>

In 1807, the first edition of the Bowdlers' ''The Family Shakspeare'', covering 20 plays, appeared in four small volumes.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/004144456 |title=The family Shakespeare ... |last1=Shakespeare |first1=William |last2=Bowdler |first2=Thomas |date=1807|publisher=J. Hatchard|location=London}}</ref> From 1811 until his death in 1825, Bowdler lived at Rhyddings House, overlooking [[Swansea]] Bay, from where he travelled extensively in Britain and Europe. In 1815, he published ''Observations on Emigration to France, With an Account of Health, Economy, and the Education of Children'', a cautionary work propounding his view that English invalids should avoid French [[spa]]s and go instead to [[Malta]].<ref name=bmj/> In 1818, Bowdler published an expanded edition of ''The Family Shakspeare'', covering all 36 available plays. This had much success.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news |url=https://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2016/07/11/bowdlerize/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181108105409/https://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2016/07/11/bowdlerize/ |url-status=dead |archive-date=8 November 2018 |title=What did Bowdler bowdlerize? {{!}} OxfordWords blog|date=11 July 2016 |work=OxfordWords blog |access-date=8 November 2018 |language=en-US}}</ref> By 1827 the work was in its fifth edition.<ref>Classified Advertisements, ''[[The Observer]]'', 10 June 1827, p. 1.</ref> In his last years, Bowdler prepared an expurgated version of the works of the historian [[Edward Gibbon]], which was published posthumously in 1826.<ref name=odnb/> His sister [[Jane Bowdler]] (1743–1784) was a poet and essayist. Another sister, [[Henrietta Maria Bowdler]] (Harriet) (1750–1830), collaborated with Bowdler on his expurgated Shakespeare.<ref name=odnb/>

Bowdler, at aged 70, died at Rhyddings near [[Swansea]] on 24 February 1825,<ref name="EB1911"/> and was buried at [[Oystermouth]].<ref name=odnb/> He left bequests to the poor of Swansea and Box.<ref>Bowdler, p. 329.</ref> His large library of [[unexpurgated]] volumes of 17th and 18th century tracts, collected by his ancestors Thomas Bowdler (1638–1700) and Thomas Bowdler (1661–1738), was donated to the [[University of Wales, Lampeter]]. In 1825 Bowdler's nephew, also a Thomas Bowdler, published ''Memoir of the Late John Bowdler, Esq., to Which Is Added, Some Account of the Late Thomas Bowdler, Esq. Editor of the Family Shakspeare''.