Life
Born,Chesterfield,Derbyshire,he attended Hasland Junior School and Chesterfield Grammar School as a child and graduated in natural sciences from Emmanuel College,Cambridge in 1931,taking his Ph.D. in nuclear physics while working at Cavendish Laboratory under Ernest Rutherford. From 1934 to 1935 he was sponsored by ICI to undertake research at the University of Amsterdam. [1]
After a period in teaching,in 1940 he was conscripted to the Telecommunications Research Establishment to work on radar,including an improved system to distinguish between friend and foe. From 1943,he continued his work at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory,establishing himself as an able and effective administrator. From the end of World War II to 1953 he held a series of jobs,including selling early computers manufactured by Ferranti. His prescient forecasts of the impact that the technology would have on daily life were published in his 1953 book Faster than Thought. [1]
In 1953,Bowden became principal of the Manchester College of Science and Technology,a vocational education college in Manchester. The post-war expansion in university education in Britain,coupled with Bowden's energy,creativity and lobbying soon entailed the college's transformation into UMIST (University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology). [1]
On 18 January 1964,he was created a life peer as Baron Bowden,of Chesterfield in the County of Derby [2] and later in this year,Harold Wilson appointed him Minister for Education and Science. However,Westminster and the labyrinths of the civil service were ill-matched to Bowden's direct approach and,in 1965 he returned to UMIST. He retired in 1976. [1]
Lord Bowden helped Richard L. Hills preserve the archives of locomotive manufacturer Beyer,Peacock &Company. [3] [4]
Bowden was married four times and had three children. He died in Bowdon,Cheshire. [1]
This page is based on this
Wikipedia article Text is available under the
CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
