Ingram Bywater was born on June 27, 1840, in Islington, London.

He was an English classical scholar. It was from his father, John Ingram Bywater (c. 1814-1864), a man of very moderate means, who spared no expense for his son's education, that Bywater got his first instruction in Greek, Latin, and French. His serious study of Greek began when he entered King’s College School and then Queen's College, Oxford. He obtained a first class in Moderations (1860) and in the final classical schools (1862), and became Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford (1863), Reader in Greek (1883), Regius Professor of Greek (1893–1908), and Student of Christ Church. His wide knowledge of books led to his being appointed Sub-Librarian of the Bodleian in 1879. He later resigned to serve as a Delegate of the Clarendon Press, a position he filled until his death in 1914. Bywater received honorary degrees from various universities and was elected corresponding Member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences. He is chiefly known for his editions of Greek philosophical works: Heracliti Ephesii Reliquiae (1877); Prisciani Lydi quae extant (edited for the Berlin Academy in the Supplementum Aristolelicum, 1886); Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea (1890), De Arte Poetica (1898) and Contributions to the Textual Criticism of the Nicomachean Ethics (1892). Bywater was an expert bibliophile and bequeathed around 4,000 volumes of his collection to the Bodleian Library in Oxford in 1915.

In 1885, he married Charlotte Sotherby, née Cornish (1841–1908). He died on December 17, 1914, in Middlesex, England.