Alfred Russell Mowbray was a schoolmaster and committed Church of England High Churchman who taught poor children on the Boatmen's Floating Chapel at Oxford. He began first a bookshop and then a printery to supply tracts and other religious publications, and began publishing in 1873. Mowbray's religious beliefs and church affiliations influenced the output of the firm for its entire existence.
The firm opened a bookshop and church furnishing shop in London in 1894, and later expanded into church vestments and ornaments. It incorporated as A. R. Mowbray and Company in 1903. Mowbray was purchased in 1988 by the Pentos Group, who sold the publishing division to Cassell. The Mowbray imprint for church-related publications continued into the 1990s.
