Picture: davidjohnsonphotographic.co.uk

Professor Sir Paul Nurse with Dr Rosemary Fowler and her daughter, Professor Mary Fowler

Darwin was honoured to play host on Sunday to the presentation of the degree of Doctor of Science honoris causa from the University of Bristol to Rosemary Fowler.

The mother of former Darwin Master Professor Mary Fowler, Rosemary graduated with first-class honours after her undergraduate degree in Physics in 1947, and immediately began working towards a PhD. Her identification, the following year, of the kaon, a particle which decayed to three pions rather than two, opened a new era of research, leading to Nobel prizes and critical discoveries on both sides of the Atlantic. Rosemary, however, stepped away from her studies to raise her family.

“There is no doubt that Rosemary had the intellectual rigour and curiosity to pursue an illustrious research career in Physics; perhaps, like her husband and fellow researcher Peter, continuing to develop techniques for measuring and understanding cosmic rays,” said the geneticist and Nobel laureate Professor Sir Paul Nurse, who in his capacity as Chancellor of the University of Bristol presented Rosemary with her degree.

“In such a scenario, I have no doubt that the University of Bristol alumni team here today would have spent decades writing and celebrating her remarkable discovery in 1948, and all that she subsequently achieved.

“Instead, Rosemary and Peter made a pragmatic choice following their marriage in 1949. In a country with few working women, housing shortages, ongoing food rationing and hoping for a family, Rosemary left the University of Bristol without completing her PhD, and supported Peter’s work from home whilst raising their three daughters. Until now, we at the University of Bristol have not celebrated Rosemary’s work as a physicist as we should have.”

In a ceremony held in Cambridge rather than Bristol to reduce the travel imposed on the now 97-year-old Rosemary, representatives of the University and of Darwin joined a multi-generational gathering of her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Her daughter, Mary, addressed the group on her behalf, recalling her wartime education in Bath, where her naval engineer father was posted by the Admiralty. In 1943 she became the only girl from her school to go to university, travelling from Bath to Bristol each day by multiple buses.

“As a child I wanted to be a physicist because it seemed to be exciting, such fun,” Mary remembered. “With both parents being physicists, physics and research were kitchen table chat! Rosemary influenced us all – we were all keen on science and maths. There was no thought that girls couldn’t do it.”

Rosemary’s scientific contribution has come to new light thanks to the work of physicist and science writer Suzie Sheehy, who shared her story through an essay in Nature earlier this year.

“We are enormously grateful to her for reintroducing us to Rosemary and making today possible,” said Sir Paul Nurse.

“Rosemary’s work in particle discovery in the 1940s, as a physicist at Bristol, paved the way for critical discoveries that continue to shape the work of today’s physicists, and our understanding of the universe.”


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