Lived at Motukarara with his mother Mary Bowley (nee Manson), father Charles Frederick Bowley, and siblings Basil and Olga. His father was the local schoolmaster at Teddington.

Eric was sent in the first echelon to Egypt, then to Gallipoli. While at Gallipoli, he was hospitalised on 6 June 1915 with pleurisy. He was sent to England via the hospital ship, Loyalty, and admitted to the No.2 hospital in Exeter on 26 June. On 11 January 1916, he was attached to the New Zealand base at Hornchurch. He returned to Egypt, arriving at Ismailia on 1 March 1916. While there, he was appointed as company quartermaster sergeant on 27 March.

He embarked for France from Egypt on 9 April 1916. While in France, he was hospitalised with enteritis on 30 May 1916 and relinquished his position as company quartermaster sergeant. After being discharged from hospital, he marched in to Étaples on 22 June 1916 where he remained on duty. He re-joined his unit on 16 November 1916.

Eric was attached to No.1 Company on 23 January 1917. Following his promotion to sergeant, he was nominated for an Imperial Commission in April 1917. He was seconded by the British army to become an officer cadet as they had run out of suitable men from their own ranks. Returning to England, he trained at High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire. While sampling the fare of local hostelries he met and soon married Annie, the daughter of the innkeeper of the Swan Inn at Falmer just out of Brighton, Sussex. His first child, Gladys Eva, was born in May 1918.

Eric graduated as Second Lieutenant in the British Army, was discharged from active service in 1919, and returned to NZ with his wife and daughter. After his return he and Annie had two more children: Olga Nancy and Alan John Manson Bowley. He was a victim of German mustard gas during the French battles and suffered with breathing difficulties for the rest of his life.

He returned to Canterbury and purchased a block of farmland at Cheviot where he remained farming for a few years until he received an offer too good to turn down and sold Ridgethorp to a neighbour whose family still farms the land today.

Due to the lung damage he had sustained, he could only work outdoors. He saw a vacancy from the Marine department for lighthouse keepers and joined up in that service. The somewhat militaristic structure fitted well with his officers training in the army and he stayed in service until his retirement in the early 1950s.

Eric and Annie and their family moved around the country from posting to posting. Stations included Dog, Cape Brett, Cuvier(where he was posted for the duration of World War 2 in a coast watch role as well as lighthouse keeper due to his previous army commission), Egmont, Stevens Island, French pass, Castlepoint, and Moeraki. Active parts in that life included cleaning the lenses after the kerosene fuelled light was turned off daily, and maintaining the day to day life as if on a farm. They were dependent on the supply ships that visited monthly (weather and tide permitting) but for all other intents and purposes were self-sufficient.

Eric retired from Cape Egmont and he and Annie spent their retirement years at Omokoroa just out of Tauranga. He died in 1964 and is buried at Tauranga. AWMM