A three-quarter length portrait, slightly to the right, showing Rowley in his vice-admiral's full dress uniform, 1832-33, wearing the ribbons and stars of the GCB and GCMG; he holds a telescope in the crook of his right arm abd his left hand rests on a rocky outcrop.
Josias Rowley probably first went to sea in the ‘Suffolk’ in December 1778 under the command of his uncle, Sir Joshua Rowley. He was a midshipman in the ‘Alexander’ in 1780 and in the ‘Agamemnon’ the follow year. He was promoted lieutenant on 24 December 1783; to command the ‘Lark’, 16 guns, on 14 March 1794; and captain on 6 April 1795. He was appointed to the ‘Braave’ (ex-Dutch, 40 guns) at the Cape in April and to the ‘Impérieuse’, 38 guns, in January 1799, returning from duties in the East Indies in June 1802. He commissioned the 64-gun ‘Raisonnable’ in April 1805 and saw action off Cape Finisterre on 22 July that year. He then joined Sir Home Riggs Popham in South America. He was then employed on operations in the Indian Ocean, notably in Mauritius, and in the Mediterranean, where he commanded the ‘America’, 74 guns, until October 1814. He was made a baronet on 4 December 1813, promoted rear-admiral on 4 June 1814, and made KCB on 2 January 1815. In 1815 he was briefly in the Mediterranean with his flag in the 98-gun ‘Impregnable’. Between 1818 and 1821 Rowley was commander-in-chief on the coast of Ireland. He was made vice-admiral on 27 May 1825 and was commander-in- chief in the Mediterranean from December 1833 to February 1837.