The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Cowie, Right Rev. William Garden

1362817The Dictionary of Australasian Biography — Cowie, Right Rev. William GardenPhilip Mennell

Cowie, Right Rev. William Garden, D.D., Bishop of Auckland, N.Z., the second son of Alexander Cowie, of Auchterless, Aberdeenshire, was born in London in 1881, and educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, of which college he was scholar in 1852. In 1852-4 he took the Latin and English Essay Prizes, and graduated First Class in Law 1854, being admitted to the B.A. in 1855, to M.A. in 1865, and having the degree of D.D. conferred upon him in 1869. Bishop Cowie was ordained deacon in 1854, and priest in 1855 by the Bishop of Ely. In 1854 he was curate of St. Clement's, Cambridge, of Moulton, Suffolk, 1855-7, and was chaplain to Lord Clyde's army at Lucknow in 1858, and to Sir Neville Chamberlain's column against the Afghans in 1863-4. He has the medal and clasps for Lucknow, and for the frontier campaign of 1863. In 1863 he was appointed chaplain to the Viceroy of India, and in 1864 to the Bishop (Cotton) of Calcutta. In 1865 he was Chaplain of Cashmere, and in 1867 was appointed rector of Stafford. In 1869 he was consecrated Bishop of Auckland in Westminster Abbey by the Archbishop (Tait) of Canterbury and Bishops (Selwyn) of Lichfield and (Browne) of Ely. Bishop Cowie is a governor of St. John's College, Auckland, and on the Senate of the New Zealand University (1880). He is the author of "Notes on the Temples of Cashmere," "A Visit to Norfolk Island," and "Our Last Year in New Zealand," published in 1888.