In 1838 Sir George Bowyer (1811-83) published his Dissertation on the statutes of the cities of Italy. In that year and subsequently he donated printed books and a few manuscripts on this subject to the Bodleian. He was called to the bar of the Middle Temple in 1839, and was made a Doctor of Civil Law at Oxford in 1844; he was the author of a series of works on constitutional law. He converted to Roman Catholicism in 1850, succeeded his father as baronet in 1860, and twice sat in Parliament (as MP for Dundalk from 1852 to 1868, and for the county of Wexford from 1874 to 1880).