Humphry Bowen

Early life and education Bowen was born in Oxford, son of the chemist Edmund Bowen and Edith Bowen (nee Moule). 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. 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. This was a dried, crushed chomogenate of the plant kale, that was stable and consistent enough to be distributed as a research calibration standard - probably the first successful example of such a standard.

In 1968, Bowen noted that the paint used for yellow line road markings can contain chromate pigment, which may cause urban pollution as it deteriorates. He pointed out that hexavalent chromium in dust can cause dermatitis ulceration on the skin, inflammation of the nasal mucosa and larynx, and lung cancer. He retired to Winterborne Kingston 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 and Turkey. He established the Bowen Cup at the University of Reading in 1988, an annual prize for the student in the Department of Chemistry at the University who achieves the top marks in Part II Analytical Chemistry.