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 Westminster School is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school in Westminster, London, England, in the precincts of Westminster Abbey. It derives from a charity school founded by Westminster Benedictines before the 1066 Norman Conquest, as d ...

, Bowen received an emergency commission in April 1942 into the

Indian Army The Indian Army is the land-based branch and the largest component of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Supreme Commander of the Indian Army, and its professional head is the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), who is a four ...

. He spent many years in

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Med ...

, Sudan and

India India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...

before returning to England in 1951 and joining the Royal Engineers 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 (United Kingdom), Ministry of Defence (MoD ...

and ultimately being promoted to the rank of Major. 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. Warne ...

'' 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".

, "Cricket Books, 1970", '' Wisden Cricketer's Almanack'' 1971, p. 1069. An eccentric 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,

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. Devon is ...

, 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