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Celebrating Hampshire Historians

Fowler, James Kingston

11 March 1852 – 3 July 1934

James Fowler KCMG, KCVO, FRCP, MA was born at Woburn, Bedfordshire, the fifth son of James Fowler and his wife Frances.  From 1870 onwards he attended King’s College, London.  He was initially intent on training for the Church but changed course in order to pursue a medical career. He qualified as a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1874 and the Royal College of Physicians two years later.  He then worked at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, and this enabled him to graduate, in 1880, with Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Arts degrees (Caius College). 

After working at the Westminster and Middlesex Hospitals and the Brompton he became a lecturer in the practice of medicine and was appointed to a number of boards, including the Senate of London University and Royal College of Physicians.  His speciality was diseases of the chest and he edited and authored numerous papers and publications on pulmonary tuberculosis and associated subjects.

He served in WWI as a consulting physician with the rank of colonel. Stationed at Rouen, he was mentioned in dispatches.  He later held posts in the Colonial Office, being appointed KCMG on his retirement.

Fowler was ‘elegant and distinguished in appearance…and had a wide circle of friends in all walks of life.’  One of these was John Douglas-Scott-Montagu, 2nd Baron Montagu of Beaulieu.  As the result of ‘a promise, given in an incautious moment’ he agreed to write a short Guide to Beaulieu Abbey.  His researches showed that three attempts had already been made, at the request of the 1st Baron, to compile a history of the monastic establishment and all had ended in failure.  This drove him on to turn the ‘short guide’ promise into a substantial history, which appeared in 1911.  A subsequent work, in 1928, described Hayles Abbey, Gloucestershire, daughter house to Beaulieu.

Sir James spent his retirement years at Beaulieu, as warden.  One of the tributes paid after his death stated that ‘…around him there seemed to cling the atmosphere of the more spacious and leisured age which he represented, and in his passing, we have to mourn one who was, in the truest sense of the term, a “scholar physician” of a rare and splendid type.’ (Dr Reginald Hearn, BMJ).

Sources

Portrait

James K Fowler

Contribution to county’s history

Took on the task of compiling (and finishing) a significant history of Beaulieu Abbey.

Relevant published works

  • (1911) A History of Beaulieu Abbey The Car Illustrated, London

  • (1928) Hayles and Beaulieu

  • (nd) A Guide to Beaulieu Abbey

Critical Comments

Other Comments

Contributor

Dave Allen, November 2023

Keywords

Beaulieu

Any queries or further suggestions for this part of the list should be addressed to celebrating@hantsfieldclub.org.uk.

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