Sir Frederic Charles Bawden FRS (18 August 1908 – 8 February 1972) was an English plant pathologist and virologist who worked at Rothamsted Experimental Station from 1936 and served as a director from 1958 until his death.

His father was a registrar of births and deaths and moved to Okehampton where he became master of the Poor Law Institution.

The headmaster at Okehampton Grammar School, W. Hunter, made him interested in botany early in life.

He worked from 1930 at the Potato Virus Research Station under Kenneth M. Smith and Redcliffe Salaman.

[2] Bawden married Marjorie Elizabeth Cudmore, with whom he went to school at Okehampton and at Cambridge university, in 1934.