Bowmanville, Ontario, a town of approximately 40,000 people, is located in the Municipality of Clarington, Durham Region, Canada. It is approximately 75 km east of Toronto and 15 km east of Oshawa along Highway 2. Bowmanville was first incorporated as a town in 1858, but later incorporated with the neighbouring townships of Clarke and Darlington in 1974 forming the Town of Newcastle, which was renamed in 1994 to the Municipality of Clarington. Bowmanville is part of the Greater Toronto Area.
Settlers were attracted to the area by the farmland and creeks for water mills. The lands which would later become Bowmanville were first purchased by John Burk, who began to clear the forest. Mills were built first on Barber's Creek (now called Bowmanville Creek), including one still standing, now called Vanstone's Mill, at the present-day intersection of King Street and Scugog St. More mills were built on nearby Soper Creek, including another mill still standing as the municipality's Visual Arts Centre which has been designated as an architecturally protected historical building.
Burke later sold his land to Lewis Lewis. Lewis opened the first store in what was then called Darlington Mills. The store was purchased in about 1824 by Charles Bowman (for whom the town was eventually named) who then established the first post office. Its first postmaster was Robert Fairbairn, who ran the post office from 1828 to 1857. Bowmanville incorporated as a town in 1858.
By 1866, Bowmanville was a town with a population of about 3,500 in the township of Darlington, County Durham. It was a station of the Grand Trunk Railway. It was established on the north shore of Lake Ontario. It possessed a good harbour and there was extensive water power in the vicinity. The surrounding country was fertile.
The success of the Vanstone Mill, fueled by the machinery of the Crown's land grant program, led to the rapid expansion of the Bowmanville settlement in the early years of the 19th century. Under the generous yet discriminate eyes of wealthy local merchants such as John Simpson and Charles Bowman, small properties would often be sold to promote settlement and small business. The town soon developed a balanced economy; all the while gradually establishing itself as a moderate player in shipping, rail transport, metal works and common minor business (including tanneries, liveries, stables and everyday mercantile commodity exchange).
By the time of Confederation, Bowmanville was a vital, prosperous and growing town, home to a largely Scots-Presbyterian community with all manner of farmers, working, and professional class making the town their home. With local economic stability and accessible, abundant land available for the construction of housing, the town soon sported several new churches, each designated to house both Free and Auld Kirk, Anglican and Nonconformist congregations, including the Bible Christian Church, later to be a major stream of Canadian Methodism.
At present, St. John's Anglican Church. St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, St. Paul's United Church and the impressively ornate Trinity United Church (site of an old Auld Kirk church) still serve the community. All of these edifices, appropriately, lie on or are in close proximity to present-day Church Street.
In the 19th century, in 1857, the Ontario Bank was founded in Bowmanville, with local resident John Simpson as its first president. The bank, while appearing to be a local enterprise, was primarily controlled by 16 Montreal businessmen. The Ontario bank eventually opened local branches including locations in Whitby, Oshawa, and Port Hope. In 1874, it was moved to Toronto, and would later become insolvent as a result of investing in speculative stocks in 1906. The historic Ontario Bank building at the intersection of King and Temperance was demolished in 1971.
In 1884, Scottish immigrant John McKay opened the Cream of Barley Mill next to Soper Creek to manufacture a cereal of his own creation. "Cream of Barley" was shipped throughout the British Empire.
Local business organized and modernized in the 20th century, with the Dominion Organ and Piano factory, Specialty Paper Company, the Bowmanville Foundry, and the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company (1910) all providing steady work for Bowmanville's ever-growing working populations. Goodyear even went so far as to provide affordable housing for its employees, and present day Carlisle Ave. (built by Goodyear president W.C. Carlisle) in the 1910s still stands as one of Ontario's best preserved examples of industrial housing. The land on which the Bowmanville Hospital was built was donated by J.W. Alexander, the owner of the then-prospering Dominion Organ and Piano factory.
Formal education evolved in-step with Ryersonian philosophies of the day, and the advent of the Central Public School (1889) and the Bowmanville High School (1890), (both designed by Whitby architect A.A. Post) were the finishing touches to the town that was a model of then-Ontario Premier Oliver Mowat's philosophy of education, expansion and innovation for the citizens of the province.
The 20th century saw a steady rise in the construction of area schools, with Vincent Massey P.S. (1955); St. Joseph Catholic Elementary (1962, 2000 at present site); Waverly P.S. (1978); Dr. Ross Tilley P.S. (1993); St. Elizabeth Catholic Elementary (1998); John M. James P.S. (1999); Harold Longworth P.S. (2003); and Holy Family Catholic Elementary School (2007), all accommodating gradual population increases and building developments in specific demographic areas of the town. The local school board was amalgamated with neighboring jurisdictions to form the Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board in 1997. The Catholic schools are part of the Peterborough Victoria Northumberland and Clarington Catholic District School Board which had already merged four counties in 1969 (at that time it was named the Peterborough, Victoria, Northumberland and Durham Separate School Board).
As the town grew and prospered, so arrived Bowmanville's grand era of architectural building and refinement. Many excellently maintained specimens of Italianate, Gothic Revival, Colonial Brick and Queen Anne architecture remain in Bowmanville's older central neighborhoods. Much of Bowmanville's residential and commercial architectural heritage was either lost or threatened by demolition and modern development from 1950 to 1980, but a 25-year renaissance in appreciation and awareness (led largely by local historians and LACAC members) helped to preserve the precious remnants of days gone by.
Bowmanville was incorporated as a village in 1852 and as a town in 1858. In 1974, the town was amalgamated with neighbouring Clarke Township and Darlington Township to form the Town of Newcastle which in turn was renamed the Municipality of Clarington in 1994.
Subdivided housing developments first arrived in the 1950s, with a significant increase in housing development through the 1980s and 1990s. The population rose to about 10,000 in the 1970s, about 20,000 in the 1980s, about 25,000 in the 1990s and today is about 35,000. Transportation improvements in the 1980s included a widening of Highway 401 (first built through Bowmanville in 1952) to six lanes and of Highway 2 to 4/5 lanes. Many have referred to this as the "Lane Era" of Bowmanville.
Camp 30, the Lake Ontario Officers' Camp-Bowmanville, held captive German army officers from the Afrika Korps, Luftwaffe aircrew and naval officers from the Kriegsmarine. Farms surrounded the camp that had been a delinquent boys' school prior to the war. In several accounts by former prisoners of war (POWs), the prison was represented as very humane, in that the prisoners were well treated and well fed.
Among the German officers transferred from England to Bowmanville was Korvettenkapitän Otto Kretschmer, who was the top U-boat ace of World War II. Kretschmer assumed the duties of the senior naval officer, sharing the command with the senior Luftwaffe officer Oberstleutnant Hans Hefele and the senior army officer General Leutnant Hans von Ravenstein.
The Bowmanville boys' school had been quickly turned into a POW camp by surrounding the existing school buildings with a barbed wire fence. The facility, which had been designed to house 300 boys, was cramped and undersized for grown men. Two 12-foot-high (3.7 m) fences with electric lights every twelve feet and nine guard towers surrounded the 14-acre (57,000 m2) site. The fence had sixty miles of barbed wire looped around the small perimeter. Lieutenant Colonel R.O. Bull M.C. had a support staff plus the Veterans Guard of Canada, consisting of nine officers and 239 other ranks under his command to guard the prisoners.
When the naval prisoners arrived at Bowmanville, there were no recreational facilities. The naval officers quickly transformed the camp. Flower and vegetable gardens were planted, sports fields, tennis courts and a swimming pool were built. The quarters were expanded, giving the prisoners better living conditions. The prisoners received money from home or earned extra money by manufacturing wooden furniture. They were able to purchase beer, cigarettes and dry goods from Eaton's mail order catalogue. It was an ideal life except that there were no women and no freedom. For some there was the urge to get back to the war and defend their country, and for others a desire to remain POWs for the duration of the war.
A daily routine of exercise, sporting events and work assignments was established. As well as English being taught, professors from the nearby University of Toronto gave lectures for university credit classes. A school was also formed, which taught midshipmen seamanship and navigation courses.
Current movies were shown each week. National and religious holidays were observed, and music concerts were given regularly. Elaborate stage plays were produced. Extraordinary puppets were designed and fabricated for puppet shows. Although the conditions were good in the Canadian POW camps, there was very little to do, and the routine was always the same.
In October 1942, between 150 and 400 mostly German POW prisoners revolted against the guards at Camp 30 after they were shackled as retribution as part of the escalation of Germany's new Commando Order.
Lt.Col. James Taylor had asked German senior officer Georg Friemel to supply 100 prisoners to volunteer to be shackled as part of the ongoing international dispute. When he refused, Otto Kretschmer and Hans Hefele were also asked to provide volunteers, but refused.
Taylor ordered the guards to find 100 officers to be shackled by force, and Horst Elfe, Kretschmer and others barricaded themselves in the mess hall, arming themselves with sticks, iron bars and other makeshift weapons. Approximately 100 Canadian soldiers requisitioned from another base arrived, and together stormed the mess hall using only baseball bats, so the two sides remained evenly matched. After several hours of brawling, the Canadians brought high pressure water hoses and soaked the cabin thoroughly until the prisoners agreed to come out peacefully.
During later incidents in the battle which spanned several days, Volkmar König was wounded by gunfire and another bayoneted, and a Canadian soldier suffered a skull fracture from a thrown jar of jam. After calm had returned, 126 of the prisoners were transferred to other camps.
Bowmanville is surrounded by rural areas on three sides, and Lake Ontario to the south. Farmland formerly covered central Bowmanville until the population increased, thus establishing a nascent downtown core by the early 19th century. There is a harbour to the south of Bowmanville in Port Darlington.
Under the Köppen climate classification Bowmanville has a humid continental climate with warm summers and cold winters. Unlike many other locations on similar latitudes on the eastern half of the North American continent the winters are relatively mild, with cold extremes being moderated by the proximity to Lake Ontario. In spite of this the average low is around −10 °C (14 °F) in January. Summers are normally moderately warm with averages of around 26 °C (79 °F) during the day but with nights cooling off rapidly to fall below 15 °C (59 °F) on many occasions.
The Canadian Tire Motorsport Park (formerly Mosport International Raceway) which hosts both minor grand prix races and major racing events by CASCAR, the SCCA, NASCAR, and the United SportsCar Championship annually is located about 25 kilometres north of Bowmanville.
Bowmanville was home to the oldest private zoo in Canada, the Bowmanville Zoo until its closure in 2016.The Bowmanville Santa Claus Parade has been held annually on the third Saturday of November since 1961.
Since the 1950s, Bowmanville has been accessible via Highway 401 and is served by three interchanges: Bowmanville Ave (formerly Waverley Road) — Durham Road 57 (Exit 431), Liberty Street — Durham Road 14 (Exit 432) and Bennett Road (Exit 435), that also serves the retirement community of Wilmot Creek on the Lake Ontario shore. The interchange with Highway 35 and Highway 115 to Lindsay and Peterborough (exit 436) lies 500 metres east of Bennett Road.
Bowmanville is bisected by the Canadian Pacific Railway, while the Canadian National Railway runs to the south of the town. Bowmanville had its own transit system, Clarington Transit from 2002–05, and is now served by Durham Region Transit, which offers connections to GO Transit and Via Rail.
GO Transit plans to extend the Lakeshore East line train service to Bowmanville by 2024.
