James Lord Bowes was a wealthy Liverpool (UK) wool broker, art collector and patron of the arts, author and authority on Japan and its art, and benefactor. In 1888 he was appointed the first foreign-born Japanese Consul in Great Britain, a post he held until his sudden death in 1899 at the age of 65. In 1890, in the grounds of Streatlam Tower, his home in the Toxteth area of Liverpool, he opened to the public the first dedicated museum of Japanese art in the western world.
