 In 1866 he became consul in Hakodate (in Ezo, later Hokkaidō); he had previously been consul in Nagasaki (in Kyūshū).For many years it was believed that either Gower or Walter B. Woodbury was commissioned by the London firm Negretti and Zambra to photograph China and Japan between 1857 and 1860.It is now known that Pierre Rossier was the photographer in question.