After being educated at Ruthin School, Owen attended Jesus College, Oxford, matriculating in 1838.
He was a Fellow of Jesus College from 1845 until 1864, when an allegation of immorality forced his resignation.
Owen was a supporter of disestablishment of the Welsh Church, believing that this would help promote its catholic character.
[2] Owen has been described by one biographer as having "a claim to be considered the most erudite of the nineteenth-century fellows of his college".
His major works were An Introduction to the Study of Dogmatic Theology (1858), and Institutes of Canon Law (1884), written at the prompting of Walter Kerr Hamilton, who was Bishop of Salisbury.