Joseph Fowler (1872-1958)

Dorset Editor of SDNQ 1936-1953.

Born 13 October 1872.
Died 19 December 1958.

Obituary (SDNQ vol. 27, part CCLXIX, p.209, March 1959)
THE LATE MR JOSEPH FOWLER.
The Committee have to announce with great regret the death on December 19^th, 1958, in his eighty-seventh year, of Mr Joseph Fowler, MA, FGS, a member of the Committee since 1936, and Dorset Editor 1936-53.

Mr Fowler came of a North Country family and took his degree at Durham University. He founded a preparatory school at Avisford near Arundel in Sussex and there his love of teaching found full scope. His favourite subjects were geology and history, and his first publication was The High Stream of Arundel, 1929.

In 1934 Mr Fowler retired to Sherborne and in his sixties began a new career of literary activity, displaying an energy which advancing years had only recently begun to lessen. His great achievement in these years was his Mediaeval Sherborne which appeared in 1951; a detailed history of the town and its institutions based on considerable research. As a geologist as well as an historian, Mr Fowler began his work with a careful survey of the natural characteristics of the neighbourhood which had helped to determine its later development. He also published Sherborne behind the Seen, 1936, and three short works: The Stones of Sherborne Abbey, 1938, St Aldhelm, 1947 and The Geology of the Thornford Pipe Trench, 1957. For Somerset & Dorset Notes & Queries he edited the pre-Reformation Churchwardens’ Accounts of All Hallows, Sherborne and had just prepared a transcription of the fifteenth century building account of Sherborne Almshouses. Not content with studying the history of his adopted county from unpublished sources, Mr Fowler acquired actual knowledge of it in long walks over the countryside, sometimes taking a party of schoolboys to hunt for fossils and other evidence of geological history.

As founder and President of the Sherborne Historical Society and as a lecturer on local history he was always ready to help those who shared his interests, and he will be much missed by a wide circle of friends of all ages who appreciated his kindliness and learning and were inspired by his own enthusiasm for the study of the past.

Mr Fowler leaves a widow and three daughters, now living at Freshford near Bath, with whom the Committee wish to express their sympathy.
S.W.R.

Obituary (Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History & Archaeological Society for 1958, vol. 80)
JOSEPH FOWLER, MA, FCS, 1872-1958.
Descendant of a Lincolnshire family and son of James Fowler, a practising surgeon, Joseph Fowler was born at Wakefield, Yorkshire, in 1872. He was educated at Churcher’s College, Petersfield, and at Durham University. After graduation he studied for Holy Orders in the Church of England, and, following a term as Curate at Wandsworth, was inducted as Vicar of Milton, Portsmouth.

In 1908 he married Anne Elizabeth, daughter of Lt.-Col. Fannin, RAMC. In later life he became a Roman Catholic. His great love of teaching led him to found the Preparatory School for boys at Avisford. This school, near Arundel, still flourishes. His leisure hours were devoted to the study of the past. In this he was following the footsteps of his father, a keen geologist, and of his grandfather, William Fowler, an Antiquarian. Amongst the results of his Sussex studies were ‘The Highstream of Arundel’, and (Q.J. Geol.Soc., Vol.LXXXVIII) ‘The one hundred feet Raised Beach between Arundel and Chichester’.

When twenty-five years ago, he settled in Sherborne, his geological researches produced his ‘Sherborne Behind the Seen’, ‘Stones of Sherborne Abbey’ and’ The Geology of the Thornford Pipe Trench’ (Proc. D.N.H.&A.S., Vol.78). And, after years spent in deciphering a vast treasure-trove of unpublished mediaeval documents, he completed his ‘Mediaeval Sherborne’, perhaps his greatest contribution to our knowledge of the past. In 1955 he read his paper ‘The Manor Court Roll of Abbot John Meere’ to the Society. He was for many years Joint-Editor of Somerset & Dorset Notes and Queries.

There can be but few of those who met him who will not preserve a memory of his kindly courtesy, albeit the very qualities that determined his individuality and character render it difficult to portray him. His width of vision and depth of knowledge were masked by his innate modesty. He was a seeker: equally he was a giver who joyed in sharing, particularly with the young, the knowledge he had patiently over many years acquired.

His death at a ripe age occurred at his home in Freshford, near Bath in December 1958. The Society was proud to number him amongst its Honorary Members and unites in sympathy with Mrs Fowler and her daughters.
R.F. Dalton.

Obituary (Taunton Courier and Western Advertiser, 27 December 1958)
Well-Known Historian. Death of Mr Joseph Fowler.
Many friends in Sherborne will learn with regret of the death on Friday of Mr Joseph Fowler, MA, FGS, who had devoted so many years of his life to the study of the local history and geology in this area.
Mr Fowler will be remembered with affection and esteem not only for his published works, but for his unstinting help to both young and old in their interest in local history.
Mr Fowler was for many years Dorset editor of the Somerset and Dorset Notes and Queries, and his study of local geology in ‘Sherborne behind the Seen,’ and of his local history in ‘Mediaeval Sherborne’ will remain as a permanent legacy of his ability to combine profound knowledge with clarity of exposition.
With the publication of this book, Sherborne Urban Council wrote to Mr Fowler in 1952 expressing thanks to him for writing it. In a resolution the Council expressed the view that ‘Medieval Sherborne’ would be ‘a work of reference for all time, and is a volume which adds greatly to the knowledge and appreciation of our town and precious heritage.’
In his reply at that time, Mr Fowler said he was very pleased that the Council and so many other Sherborne friends had found his book of interest and of use. That was the best reward he could have for his labours.
As well as in Sherborne, Mr Fowler was well known in the surrounding district for his lectures in local history, and did so much to stimulate not only the desire for knowledge but the capacity for enjoyment.
Mr Fowler was founder-president of the Sherborne Historical Society with whose members he celebrated his 85^th birthday last year.
While in Sherborne Mr Fowler resided at Sheeplands Lane. He left the town last summer in order to live at Freshford near Bath. He is survived by his wife and three daughters.

Publications
J. Fowler, Sherborne Behind the Seen. A Description of Sherborne Scenery, its nature and history in its relation to the underlying rocks (Sherborne, J.C. & A.T. Sawtell, 1936)

J. Fowler, The stones of Sherborne Abbey (Friends of Sherborne Abbey, Sawtells of Sherborne, c.1938)

J. Fowler, The Oldest Extant Minutes of a meeting of the Governors of Sherborne School (Reprinted from The Archaeological Journal, Vol. XCIX, London, 1943)

J. Fowler, Highmores Hill Outlier, Sherborne (Reprinted from the Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 1943, Vol. 65, 1944, pages 157-162)

J. Fowler, Saint Aldhelm: First Abbot of Malmesbury, First Bishop of Sherborne/ St Aldhelm: Scholar, Minstrel, Abbot and Bishop (Sherborne, Sawtells, 1947)

J. Fowler, Mediaeval Sherborne (Dorchester, Longmans Ltd., 1951)