Bower, Frederick Orpen, 1855-1948, botanist

Frederick Orpen Bower was born at Ripon, Yorkshire on 4 November 1855. His father, Abraham Bower, came of an old Yorkshire family of wool-staplers and clothiers. His mother was Cornelia Morris, sister of the naturalist Francis Orpen Morris. Bower was the youngest of the family and was educated at Repton where, by individual study, he laid the foundation of a knowledge of botany and decided that it should be his work in life. In 1874 he entered Trinity College Cambridge and was taught elementary biology by Mathew Foster, the only scientific education of any substance available to him there. Two years later, Bower went to Würzburg to study under Sachs. At this time, pioneering work at the German universities in the direction of morphology was attracting students from across the globe. In 1879 he studied under Anton de Bary at Strasbourg. On his return to Britain, Bower began work at University College London, assisting Daniel Oliver and later lecturing under Thomas Henry Huxley. He also worked at Kew with Dukinfield Henry Scott and began to have a significant impression amongst his colleagues and contemporaries.

In 1885, at the age of only 29, he became Regius Professor of botany at the University of Glasgow. He occupied this for forty years, during which time he built up a well-equipped department, housed in the first botanical institute to be erected in Great Britain. Bower was an all-round botanist, a good organizer, an inspiring teacher in lecture-room, laboratory, and in the field, and a wonderful departmental chief to a succession of young botanists. Above all, he was devoted to original work in morphological botany, in which his department had a world-wide reputation.

Bower was particularly associated with research and publications on ferns, contributing greatly to the understanding or their origins and evolution. His three volume The Ferns, 1923-1928 , was highly acclaimed in terms its contribution to classification. In line with the devloping areas of palaeobotany and morphology, his The Origin of a Land Flora, 1908, saw him develop Celakovsky's 'antithetic' theory as a working hypothesis while research into morphology itself developed further.

Bower had excellent health throughout his life, which with his energetic, sanguine temperament he enjoyed immensely. He was domesticated, and social, but unmarried. He played the 'cello and was devoted to chamber music, but his scientific work and writing was pursued as his greatest and most continuous pleasure; the clear and vivid style conveyed his personal interest to the reader. He made large additions of new facts, but his tendency was always to get farther by the critical use of his scientific imagination. He was recognized as the leading plant-morphologist through a long period of the development of modern botany. He retired in 1925, and died at Ripon 11 April 1948 in his ninety-third year.

Bower's uncle was Francis Orpen Morris (1810-1893), clergyman and naturalist.

While at the Royal College of Science, London, Bower was closely associated with Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895).

Notable publications:

Practical Botany for Beginners, ( 1894)

The Origin of a Land Flora, ( 1908)

The Botany of the Living Plant, ( 1919)

The Ferns, ( 1923-1928)

Sixty Years in Botany in Britain (1875-1935), ( 1938)

1885-1925: Regius Professor of botany, University of Glasgow

1886: Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1886

1891: Fellow of the Royal Society

1910: Recieved a Royal medal

1914: Honorary Degree of D.Sc. from Sydney University

1919: Honorary Degree of D.Sc. from Dublin University

1919: Honorary LL.D. from Aberdeen University

1919-1924: President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh

1925: Honorary LL.D. from University of Glasgow

1926: Awarded the Neill prize

1927: Honorary Degree of D.Sc. from Leeds

1930: Honorary LL.D. from Bristol University

1938: Recieved the Darwin medal

List of sources for the biographical information:

Gillespie, Charles Coulston (ed.), Dictionary of Scientific Biography, (New York, Charles Scibner's Sons, 1970) Harrison, Brian (editor), Dictionary of National Biography, ( http://www.lib.gla.ac.uk/Resource/Databases/d.shtmlOxford University Press, 1995)

Authority record created according to the National Council on ArchivesRules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names (NCA Rules)1997 and International Council on Archives: Ad Hoc Committee on Descriptive StandardsInternational Standard Archival Authority Record for Corporate Bodies, Persons and Families (ISAAR)CPF1995

Personal name authority record compiled for the NAHSTE project, 2002