Sir Ernest Arthur Gowers GCB GBE Hon. D.Litt (Manchester) Hon. ARIBA[1] (2 June 1880–16 April 1966) was a British civil servant, now best known for work on style guides for writing the English language.
He was born in London, the younger of the two sons of the eminent neurologist Sir William Richard Gowers. He was educated at Rugby School and at Clare College, Cambridge, where he gained a first class in the classical tripos in 1902.[2]
His civil service career took him from the Inland Revenue to the India Office, and then the Treasury (where, for a time, he was David Lloyd George's Principal Private Secretary[1]), the National Health Insurance Commission, Conciliation and Arbitration Board, the Board of Trade and finally, as chairman, back to the Inland Revenue. On his appointment as chairman of the Coal Mines Reorganization Commission in 1930 he retired from the civil service, but undertook a wide range of public service duties thereafter.
During the Second World War he returned to civil service managing London's Regional Civil Defence, as its Senior Regional Commissioner[3][4]
His chairmanships included a commission on the admission of women into the civil service and a Royal Commission on capital punishment, set up by the Attlee government to examine all aspects of the subject. This turned him into a convinced abolitionist. His views were set out in his book A Life for a Life?[2]
The Dictionary of National Biography accounts Gowers ‘one of the greatest public servants of his day’.[2] Among the matters he investigated were the admission of women into the senior branch of the foreign service, and the preservation, maintenance, and use of houses of outstanding historical or architectural interest.
At the invitation of HM Treasury he wrote Plain Words, a guide to the use of English in 1948. It was designed to woo officials away from pompous and over-elaborate writing, and was so successful that the Treasury asked for a sequel, The ABC of Plain Words, which was published in 1951. Both these works were slim paperbacks. Their success encouraged Her Majesty's Stationery Office to commission a hardback book combining the best of both earlier publications. This was The Complete Plain Words, published in 1954, and never (in various revisions) out of print since.
Its success was wide – far beyond the original audience of civil servants – and Gowers was invited by the Oxford University Press to prepare a new edition of Fowler's Modern English Usage, which was in need of updating, having been in print since 1926 with only very minor changes. The second edition was published in 1965 and remained in print for three decades, being succeeded by a third edition in 1996. Gowers' work in improving standards of English led to his being made President of the English Association.[1]
He spent his later years farming in Sussex. He died at King Edward VII Hospital, Midhurst, Sussex, on 16 April 1966.[2] Ernest Gowers was the grandfather of composer Patrick Gowers and greatgrandfather of mathematician and Fields Medallist Timothy Gowers.
References
- ^ a b c The Complete Plain Words, Pelican 1966 reprint
- ^ a b c d R. W. Burchfield, ed. (2004), "Gowers, Sir Ernest Arthur (1880–1966)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/33497, retrieved 2007-06-28
- ^ "London Regional Commisioners". Hansard Vol 365 cc695-6. London:UK Parliament. 16 October 1940. http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1940/oct/16/london-regional-commissioners. Retrieved 2009-04-30.
- ^ Meredith Frampton, RA (1943). "Sir Ernest Gowers, KCB, KBE, Senior Regional Commissioner for London, Lt Col A J Child, OBE, MC, Director of Operations and Intelligence, and K A L Parker, Deputy Chief Administrative Officer, in the London Regional Civil Defence Control Room 1943". IWM: Concise Art Collection. London: Imperial War Museum. http://vads.ahds.ac.uk/large.php?pic=0374-71.jpg&page=8&mode=boolean&words=obe&idSearch=boolean&vadscoll=Imperial+War+Museum+Concise+Art+Collection. Retrieved 2009-04-30.
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