Born, Chesterfield, Derbyshire, he attended Hasland Junior School and Chesterfield Grammar School as a child and graduated in natural sciences from Emmanuel College, Cambridge in 1931, taking his Ph.D. in nuclear physics while working at Cavendish Laboratory under Ernest Rutherford.

[1] After a period in teaching, in 1940 he was conscripted to the Telecommunications Research Establishment to work on radar, including an improved system to distinguish between friend and foe.

From the end of World War II to 1953 he held a series of jobs, including selling early computers manufactured by Ferranti.

[1] On 18 January 1964, he was created a life peer as Baron Bowden, of Chesterfield in the County of Derby[2] and later in this year, Harold Wilson appointed him Minister for Education and Science.

However, Westminster and the labyrinths of the civil service were ill-matched to Bowden's direct approach and, in 1965 he returned to UMIST.