Fowler was born at Winterton, Lincolnshire. His father was Joseph Fowler, a builder at “The Chains” in West Street.
Fowler became an architect and builder at Winterton, and about 1796 made drawings of Roman pavements discovered there. He took them to London to be engraved by his brother-in-law, Mr Hill. There he studied the process of copper-plate engraving, and in April 1799 brought out his own coloured engraving of a Roman pavement at Roxby. Between 1799 and 1829 he published three volumes of coloured engravings of twenty-five pavements, thirty-nine subjects from painted glass, five brasses and incised slabs, four fonts and eight miscellaneous subjects. He also created at least twenty-nine unpublished engravings, mostly of objects of antiquity. Many of the published plates were accompanied by printed broadsides.
He became acquainted with Sir Walter Scott and other celebrities, and was presented on at least one occasion to the royal family at Windsor. Some of his work can be seen in North Lincolnshire Museum in Scunthorpe and Baysgarth House Museum in Barton-on-Humber.