Herbert Wolcott Bowen

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Herbert Wolcott Bowen (right) with the President of Venezuela Cipriano Castro during the Venezuela crisis (1903)

Herbert Wolcott Bowen (born February 29, 1856 in Brooklyn , New York City , † May 29, 1927 in Woodstock , Connecticut ) was an American lawyer and diplomat .

Life

Herbert Wolcott Bowen was the seventh of ten children of Henry Chandler Bowen and his first wife Lucy Maria Tappan, while another half-brother comes from the second marriage to Ellen Holt Bowen. After attending the Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute , he began to study law at Columbia University in 1878 , which he finished in 1881 with a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) cum laude. After being admitted to the bar in 1881, he worked as a lawyer in New York City between 1884 and 1890 .

In 1890 Bowen joined the diplomatic service of the US State Department and was first consul between 1890 and 1895 and then consul general in Barcelona from 1895 to 1899 . However, he was the last US government representative to leave Spain with the beginning of the Spanish-American War on April 23, 1898. Thereupon he was appointed Prime Minister and Consul General in Persia on May 3, 1899 and handed over to Arthur on August 27, 1899 Sherburne Hardy , who was married to his sister, Grace Aspinwall Bowen, issued his accreditation letter . On May 1, 1901, he was appointed the first extraordinary envoy and plenipotentiary minister in Persia, but did not hand over an credential and left Persia. Thereupon, on December 16, 1901 , Lloyd Carpenter Griscom became the first envoy to Persia.

Bowen, in turn, was appointed Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary in Venezuela on June 17, 1901 , and submitted his credentials there on August 24, 1901 as the successor to Francis B. Loomis . He held this post until his recall on May 1, 1905, whereupon William Worthington Russell on August 22, 1905 was his successor. The Venezuela crisis , a diplomatic and military confrontation between Venezuela on the one hand and the German Reich , Great Britain and Italy on the other, fell during his term of office, but at the same time it was an indicator and arena for global political differences between the imperialist powers, especially between Germany and the USA . The Venezuelan government under President Cipriano Castro commissioned Bowen as their mediator. Bowen accepted the mandate after consulting Washington. Despite these regulations, the intervention powers, which Italy had joined in the meantime, declared the Venezuelan coast to be blocked on December 20. In mid-January 1903, negotiations began in Washington between Bowen on the one hand and the German and British agents Hermann Speck von Sternburg and Michael Henry Herbert on the other. They ended on February 13 with the signing of the so-called Washington Protocols . In it Venezuela recognized the fundamental justification of all claims and assured the immediate settlement of some items, others should be examined and settled by a mixed commission.

Herbert Wolcott Bowen married Carolyn Mae Clegg on January 25, 1902. In 1903, Yale University awarded him a Master of Arts honoris causa. After his death from heart failure on May 29, 1927, he was buried in Woodstock Hill Cemetery , Woodstock .

Web links

  • Entry on the homepage of the Office of the Historian of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
  • Entry in The Political Graveyard

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Arthur Sherburne Hardy in The Political Graveyard
  2. ↑ Chiefs of Mission for Iran on the site of the Office of the Historian of the US State Department
  3. ↑ Chiefs of Mission for Venezuela on the site of the Office of the Historian of the US State Department
personal data
SURNAME Bowen, Herbert Wolcott
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American lawyer and diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH February 29, 1856
PLACE OF BIRTH Brooklyn , New York City
DATE OF DEATH May 29, 1927
Place of death Woodstock , Connecticut