He was president of the Toronto and Guelph Railway and also served on the board of directors of several other companies.[1][2] In 1850, he was elected to city council and council selected him as mayor in 1851, 1852 and 1853.
His mayoralty of Toronto was clouded by claims of corruption.[3] In 1853 George Taylor Denison II, and several other alderman, resigned mid-term to protest what they described as Bowes corruption. Bowes and Francis Hincks had benefitted from a bailout of the Toronto, Simcoe & Lake Huron Union Railroad (later the Northern Railway. Hincks, in his capacity as the Province of Canada's Inspector General (effectively Finance Minister), had sponsored legislation to issue bonds to pay back the railway's investors, without revealing that he and Bowes had bought out a large block of the stock, at a discounted value. The pair netted a quick gain of 10,000 pounds - a fortune in those days.
Although he was cleared of any charges, Bowes was forced to pay the profit that he had made to the city.[2] In 1854, he was elected to the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada representing Toronto. He was elected to city council again in 1856 and served as mayor from 1861 to 1863. He died in Toronto in 1864.
References
^ abAllan Fotheringham (1989-05-22). "Protecting a city from its lake". Maclean's magazine. Retrieved 2019-06-08. Lt.-Gov. Sir Francis Bond Head commissioned a study for the park plan but by 1850 (the true Toronto appears!), John G. Bowes was elected alderman on a platform of railway development. The population of the new centre of Upper Canada had zoomed to 30,000. Bowes also happened to be an owner of the Toronto and Guelph Railway, which obviously eyed the harbor for shipping and wanted its trains allowed into the centre of the city. By 1851, he was mayor and rich, selling his railway to the Grand Trunk Railway, and rail lines on the supposed park land easily got council approval.