Bowring served on the Board of Trade and as the Secretary to the Royal Commission for the Great Exhibition of 1851.
Most items in the album date from the early to mid-1850s.
Two envelopes and one signature are laid in.
The album contains three meeting agendas, 29 envelopes and tickets, and 37 letters. There is significant material regarding the Royal Commission for the Great Exhibition of 1851, including the three agendas, which contain doodles ascribed to Prince Albert. The envelopes and tickets appear to have been collected because they contain autograph signatures. The letters in the volume are primarily professional, with a few letters from members of the Lewin family (Bowring's mother's family). Letter-writers represented in the album include: Sir Thomas Fremantle, Sir William Jackson Hooker, Philip Pursey, Sir George Smart, and Sir James Emerson Tennent. There are several letters and documents from Samuel Loyd, Baron Overstone, one of which is accompanied by a lock of his hair. A description of the album which accompanied it on its acquisition also lists as contributors: Sir Charles Barry, Lord Clarendon, Sir William Cubitt, Sir Henry de la Beche, Count de Torre Diaz, Lord Granville, Sir Richard Mayne, Captain Henry C. Owen, Lord Seymour, Sir Alexander Spearman, and Sir John Walsham. There are two letters by Jeremy Bentham (a friend and associate of John Bowring's), dated November 4 (or 8), 1820 and June 3, 1825. There is one letter by John Bowring written from Boulogne during his imprisonment there in 1822.