Fowler was from a Birmingham working-class background and went to King Edward VI Camp Hill School for Boys there.
He kept close ties in particular with Gian Biagio Conte and Alessandro Barchiesi and the Italian periodical Materiali e discussioni per l'analisi dei testi classici.
[1] Although he did not leave a monograph at the time of his premature death, Fowler is to be reckoned amongst the outstanding Latinists of his generation on account of his intellectual range and originality.
His special research area in Latin literature was Roman Epicureanism and the works of Lucretius and Virgil, subjects to which he made numerous contributions, as he did to others.
A bursary for an undergraduate student reading Classics at Jesus College, named in honour of Fowler, was endowed in perpetuity in 2024.