Alfred Fowler 1868 - 1940

Abstract

Abstract Alfred Fowler, one of the first Yarrow Research Professors of the Royal Society, died on 24 June 1940, as the result of a stroke following a gradual decline in health. He was born at Wilsden, in Yorkshire, on 22 March 1868— the seventh consecutive son of Hiram and Eliza Fowler. The family removed to Keighley about 1876, where Alfred attended various local schools. In 1880 he obtained a scholarship for the Trade and Grammar School, Keighley, from which in 1882 he proceeded to the Normal School of Science (later Royal College of Science), South Kensington, through the aid of a Devonshire Exhibition tenable for one year. Being at this time only 14^ years of age, he was probably the youngest student ever admitted to the College. He selected mechanics as his principal subject—a curious choice in view of his later activities. He always maintained, however, that Nature meant him to be a mathematician but that circumstances overruled her. If that were so the metamorphosis was complete before I knew him. His powers of reasoning were keen enough—I never knew him draw an illogical conclusion—but he had not the instinct for generalization that characterizes the mathematical mind; he was too vividly conscious of the particular fact, in all its concreteness, to see it readily as an example of the universal. Be that as it may, however, he obtained a first-class associateship in mechanics, the continuance of his college course being made possible through his appointment as a ‘teacher in training’.