Everything about Humphry Bowen totally explained
Humphry John Moule Bowen (
June 22,
1929 –
August 9,
2001) was a British
botanist and
chemist.
Bowen was born in
Oxford, son of the chemist
Edmund Bowen. He attended the
Dragon School, gaining a
scholarship to
Rugby School and then a
demyship to
Magdalen College, Oxford. He won the
Gibbs Prize in
1949 and completed a
DPhil in
chemistry at
Oxford University in
1953 before starting his professional career as a chemist. Bowen was also a proficient amateur actor in his early years, appearing with a young
Ronnie Barker at Oxford.
His first post was with the
Atomic Energy Research Establishment (AERE), working at the Wantage Research Laboratory, then in
Berkshire. His early work started an interest in
radioisotopes and
trace elements that he maintained throughout his working life. While at AERE, he spent several months in 1956 attending the
British nuclear tests at
Maralinga in
Australia to study the environmental effects of
radiation.
Bowen realized that the
calibration of different instruments intended to measure
trace elements was an important issue that needed addressing. His solution was to produce a good supply of a material which later become known as
Bowen's Kale. With Peter Cawse, he grew a large amount of the plant
kale, then dried and crushed it into a homogeneous and stable substance that he then freely distributed to researchers around the world for years to come. This was probably the first successful example of such a standard.
In
1964, he was appointed as a lecturer in the chemistry department at the
University of Reading. Later he was promoted to Reader in
Analytical Chemistry in
1974. At Reading, Bowen undertook consultancy for
Dunlop, investigating potential uses for their products. When the
Torrey Canyon oil disaster occurred in
1967, he realized that it might be possible to use foam booms to block the oil from spreading in the
English Channel. His original experiments were conducted in a small bucket in his laboratory. Although not entirely successful in reality at the time due to the rough seas, this lateral thinking combined his interest in chemistry with his love of nature and has since been effectively deployed to protect ports and harbours against encroaching oil slicks. Bowen wrote a number of professional books in the field of chemistry, including two editions of
Trace Elements in Biochemistry (
1966 and
1976).
From
1951 onwards, Bowen was a long-serving member of the
Botanical Society of the British Isles (BSBI). He was meetings secretary for a period and the official recorder of plants for the counties of
Berkshire and
Dorset, producing
Floras for both counties. He was also one of the leading contributors of botanical data for the
Flora of Oxfordshire.
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