Major Rowland Francis Bowen (27 February 1916 – 4 September 1978) was a British Army officer and a
cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by st ...
researcher, historian and writer.
Educated at
Westminster School
(God Gives the Increase)
, established = Earliest records date from the 14th century, refounded in 1560
, type = Public school Independent day and boarding school
, religion = Church of England
, head_label = Hea ...
, Bowen received an emergency commission in April 1942 into the
Indian Army
The Indian Army is the Land warfare, land-based branch and the largest component of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Commander-in-Chief, Supreme Commander of the Indian Army, and its professional head is the Chief of Arm ...
. He spent many years in
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning the North Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via a land bridg ...
,
Sudan
Sudan ( or ; ar, السودان, as-Sūdān, officially the Republic of the Sudan ( ar, جمهورية السودان, link=no, Jumhūriyyat as-Sūdān), is a country in Northeast Africa. It shares borders with the Central African Republic t ...
and
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...
before returning to England in 1951 and joining the
Royal Engineers
The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is a corps of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces and is head ...
as a
Captain
Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...
, working at the
War Office
The War Office was a department of the British Government responsible for the administration of the British Army between 1857 and 1964, when its functions were transferred to the new Ministry of Defence (MoD). This article contains text from ...
and ultimately being promoted to the rank of
Major
Major ( commandant in certain jurisdictions) is a military rank of commissioned officer status, with corresponding ranks existing in many military forces throughout the world. When used unhyphenated and in conjunction with no other indicato ...
.
He later worked for the Joint Intelligence Bureau, part of Britain's military intelligence establishment.
[
He became involved in cricket research and history in 1958 and, in 1963, he founded the magazine ''The Cricket Quarterly'' which ran until 1970.]['']The Cricketer
''The Cricketer'' is a monthly English cricket magazine providing writing and photography from international, county and club cricket.
The magazine was founded in 1921 by Sir Pelham Warner, an ex-England captain turned cricket writer. Warner ...
'' 1978 – obituary. He is best known for his book ''Cricket: A History of its Growth and Development throughout the World'' (1970) which has been described as "indispensable" but also as "spikily controversial and vigorously wide-ranging". In John Arlott
Leslie Thomas John Arlott, OBE (25 February 1914 – 14 December 1991) was an English journalist, author and cricket commentator for the BBC's ''Test Match Special''. He was also a poet and wine connoisseur. With his poetic phraseology, he be ...
's review of the book for ''Wisden
''Wisden Cricketers' Almanack'', or simply ''Wisden'', colloquially the Bible of Cricket, is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom. The description "bible of cricket" was first used in the 1930s by Alec Waugh in a ...
'', he commented that it was "unique in my experience as a major work on cricket written from a wide view, in disapproval of the game's establishment and in expectation of the demise of the first-class game".John Arlott
Leslie Thomas John Arlott, OBE (25 February 1914 – 14 December 1991) was an English journalist, author and cricket commentator for the BBC's ''Test Match Special''. He was also a poet and wine connoisseur. With his poetic phraseology, he be ...
, "Cricket Books, 1970", ''Wisden Cricketer's Almanack
''Wisden Cricketers' Almanack'', or simply ''Wisden'', colloquially the Bible of Cricket, is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom. The description "bible of cricket" was first used in the 1930s by Alec Waugh in a ...
'' 1971, p. 1069.
An eccentric
Eccentricity or eccentric may refer to:
* Eccentricity (behavior), odd behavior on the part of a person, as opposed to being "normal"
Mathematics, science and technology Mathematics
* Off-center, in geometry
* Eccentricity (graph theory) of a v ...
and difficult man – "Bowen never made an influential friend he couldn’t turn into an avowed adversary"[ – Bowen amputated his perfectly healthy right leg below the knee in September 1968.]
In 1974 he married a widow, Anne Valerie Jodelko, who had two visually-impaired sons. He died four years later, at Buckfastleigh
Buckfastleigh is a market town and civil parish in Devon, England situated beside the Devon Expressway ( A38) at the edge of the Dartmoor National Park. It is part of Teignbridge and, for ecclesiastical purposes, lies within the Totnes Deane ...
, Devon
Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devo ...
, aged 62.[
]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bowen, Rowland
1916 births
1978 deaths
Cricket historians and writers
British Indian Army officers
Royal Engineers officers
People educated at Westminster School, London
People from Buckfastleigh
Indian Army personnel of World War II
British expatriates in Egypt
British expatriates in Sudan
British amputees