William Bovill, Mrs Bovill and their daughters
Misses Marie and Helen Bovill
12 February and 1 March 1861

Volume 2, page 202, sitting number 2098 and Volume 2, page 249, sitting number 2285.

Identified in the Silvy daybooks as 'W. Bowill Esq., M.P.,' the man on the left is William Bovill, the Member of Parliament for Guildford and distinguished barrister, later a judge. Born at Barking on 26 May 1814, he was the younger son of Benjamin Bovill of Wimbledon. On leaving school he was articled to a firm of solicitors, but entering the Middle Temple, he practised for a short time as a special pleader below the bar. He was called in 1841 and joined the home circuit. His special training in a solicitor’s office, and its resulting connection, combined with a thorough knowledge of the details of engineering, acquired through his interest in a manufacturing firm in London’s East End, soon brought him a very extensive patent and commercial business.

He took silk in 1855 and in 1857 was elected Member of Parliament for Guildford. In the House of Commons he was very zealous for legal reform, and the Partnership Law Amendment Act (1865), which he helped to steer through the House, is always referred to as Bovill’s Act. In 1866 he was appointed solicitor-general, an office he vacated on becoming chief justice of the common pleas in November of the same year.

Sir William Bovill died at Kingston-upon-Thames on 1 November 1873. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1911), ‘As a barrister, he was unsurpassed for his remarkable knowledge of commercial law; and when promoted to the bench his painstaking labour and unswerving uprightness, as well as his great patience and courtesy, gained for him the respect and affection of the profession.’

Mrs Maria Bovill was born Maria Bolton, eldest daughter of J. H. Bolton, Esq., of Lincoln's Inn. She married William Bovill of the Middle Temple on 20 August 1844 at Lee in Kent (West Kent Guardian, 24 August 1844). 

She appears on the 1861 census, aged 38, living at Worplesdon Lodge, Surrey, with her eight children, including Mary, aged 13, and Helen, aged 11. Also present on the night of the census were thirteen live-in servants and a governess. James Paget, a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, and his wife, Lydia, were visiting the family.

Lady Bovill died, aged 79, on 21 October 1901 at 65 Onslow Gardens, South Kensington. She left effects valued at £13,794.