Humphry Bowen
Encyclopedia
Humphry John Moule Bowen (22 June 1929 – 9 August 2001) was a British botanist and chemist
Chemist
A chemist is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties such as density and acidity. Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component atoms...

.

Bowen was born in Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...

, son of the chemist Edmund Bowen. He attended the Dragon School
Dragon School
The Dragon School is a British coeducational, preparatory school in the city of Oxford, founded in 1877 as the Oxford Preparatory School, or OPS. It is primarily known as a boarding school, although it also takes day pupils...

, gaining a scholarship
Scholarship
A scholarship is an award of financial aid for a student to further education. Scholarships are awarded on various criteria usually reflecting the values and purposes of the donor or founder of the award.-Types:...

 to Rugby School
Rugby School
Rugby School is a co-educational day and boarding school located in the town of Rugby, Warwickshire, England. It is one of the oldest independent schools in Britain.-History:...

 and then a demyship
Demyship
A demyship is a form of scholarship, specifically at Magdalen College, Oxford. Oscar Wilde, Lewis Gielgud, Lord Denning andT. E. Lawrence were famous recipients. It is derived from demi-socii or half-fellows. Magdalen's founder, William of Waynflete, originally provided them for the College...

 to Magdalen College, Oxford
Magdalen College, Oxford
Magdalen College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. As of 2006 the college had an estimated financial endowment of £153 million. Magdalen is currently top of the Norrington Table after over half of its 2010 finalists received first-class degrees, a record...

. He won the Gibbs Prize in 1949 and completed a DPhil in chemistry
Chemistry
Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....

 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
Ronnie Barker
Ronald William George "Ronnie" Barker, OBE was a British actor, comedian, writer, critic, broadcaster and businessman...

 at Oxford.

His first post was with the Atomic Energy Research Establishment
Atomic Energy Research Establishment
The Atomic Energy Research Establishment near Harwell, Oxfordshire, was the main centre for atomic energy research and development in the United Kingdom from the 1940s to the 1990s.-Founding:...

 (AERE), working at the Wantage
Wantage
Wantage is a market town and civil parish in the Vale of the White Horse, Oxfordshire, England. The town is on Letcombe Brook, about south-west of Abingdon and a similar distance west of Didcot....

 Research Laboratory, then in Berkshire
Berkshire
Berkshire is a historic county in the South of England. It is also often referred to as the Royal County of Berkshire because of the presence of the royal residence of Windsor Castle in the county; this usage, which dates to the 19th century at least, was recognised by the Queen in 1957, and...

. 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
British nuclear tests at Maralinga
British nuclear tests at Maralinga occurred between 1955 and 1963 at the Maralinga site, part of the Woomera Prohibited Area, in South Australia. A total of seven major nuclear tests were performed, with approximate yields ranging from 1 to 27 kilotons of TNT equivalent...

 at Maralinga in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 to study the environmental effects of radiation
Radiation
In physics, radiation is a process in which energetic particles or energetic waves travel through a medium or space. There are two distinct types of radiation; ionizing and non-ionizing...

.

Bowen realized that the calibration
Calibration
Calibration is a comparison between measurements – one of known magnitude or correctness made or set with one device and another measurement made in as similar a way as possible with a second device....

 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
Bowen's Kale
Produced by Humphry Bowen, the reference material called Bowen's Kale was used for the calibration of early scientific instruments intended to measure trace elements in the 1960s...

. With Peter Cawse, he grew a large amount of the plant kale
Kale
Kale is very high in beta carotene, vitamin K, vitamin C, lutein, zeaxanthin, and reasonably rich in calcium. Kale, as with broccoli and other brassicas, contains sulforaphane , a chemical with potent anti-cancer properties. Boiling decreases the level of sulforaphane; however, steaming,...

, 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
University of Reading
The University of Reading is a university in the English town of Reading, Berkshire. The University was established in 1892 as University College, Reading and received its Royal Charter in 1926. It is based on several campuses in, and around, the town of Reading.The University has a long tradition...

. Later he was promoted to Reader in Analytical Chemistry
Analytical chemistry
Analytical chemistry is the study of the separation, identification, and quantification of the chemical components of natural and artificial materials. Qualitative analysis gives an indication of the identity of the chemical species in the sample and quantitative analysis determines the amount of...

 in 1974. At Reading, Bowen undertook consultancy for Dunlop
Dunlop Rubber
Dunlop Rubber was a company based in the United Kingdom which manufactured tyres and other rubber products for most of the 20th century. It was acquired by BTR plc in 1985. Since then, ownership of the Dunlop trade-names has been fragmented.-Early history:...

, investigating potential uses for their products. When the Torrey Canyon
Torrey Canyon
The Torrey Canyon was a supertanker capable of carrying a cargo of 120,000 tons of crude oil, which was shipwrecked off the western coast of Cornwall, England in March 1967 causing an environmental disaster...

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
English Channel
The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...

. 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
Biochemistry
Biochemistry, sometimes called biological chemistry, is the study of chemical processes in living organisms, including, but not limited to, living matter. Biochemistry governs all living organisms and living processes...

(1966 and 1976).

From 1951 onwards, Bowen was a long-serving member of the Botanical Society of the British Isles
Botanical Society of the British Isles
The Botanical Society of the British Isles is a scientific society for the study of flora, plant distribution and taxonomy relating to Great Britain, Ireland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. The society was founded as the Botanical Society of London in 1836...

 (BSBI). He was meetings secretary for a period and the official recorder of plants for the counties of Berkshire
Berkshire
Berkshire is a historic county in the South of England. It is also often referred to as the Royal County of Berkshire because of the presence of the royal residence of Windsor Castle in the county; this usage, which dates to the 19th century at least, was recognised by the Queen in 1957, and...

 and Dorset
Dorset
Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...

, producing Floras for both counties. He retired to Winterborne Kingston
Winterborne Kingston
Winterborne Kingston is a village in north Dorset, England. It is situated in a winterbourne valley on the Dorset Downs, seven miles south of Blandford Forum and northeast of Bere Regis.- Overview :The village has a population of 613...

 in Dorset at the end of his life. He was also one of the leading contributors of botanical data for the Flora of Oxfordshire. He acted as an expert botanical guide on tours around Europe, especially Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

.

See also

  • Bowen's son, Jonathan Bowen
    Jonathan Bowen
    Jonathan P. Bowen FBCS FRSA is a British computer scientist. He is Chairman of Museophile Limited, an Emeritus Professor at London South Bank University where he has headed the Centre for Applied Formal Methods, and a Visiting Professor at the University of Westminster...

    , a computer scientist.
  • George Claridge Druce
    George Claridge Druce
    George Claridge Druce, MA, LLD, JP, FRS, FLS was an English botanist and a Mayor of Oxford.G. Claridge Druce was born at Potterspury on Watling Street in Northamptonshire. He was the illegitimate son of Jane Druce, born 1815 in Buckinghamshire.He went to school in the village of Yardley Gobion....

    , the Victorian
    Victorian era
    The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...

     botanist who also wrote floras
    Flora (book)
    A Flora is a book or other work which describes the plant species occurring in an area or time period, often with the aim of allowing identification. Some classic and modern floras are listed below....

     for more than one county
    Counties of the United Kingdom
    The counties of the United Kingdom are subnational divisions of the United Kingdom, used for the purposes of administrative, geographical and political demarcation. By the Middle Ages counties had become established as a unit of local government, at least in England. By the early 17th century all...

    .
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