Rowland Francis Bowen (27 February 1916 – 4 September 1978) was a British Army officer and a cricket researcher, historian and writer.
Educated at Westminster School, Bowen received an emergency commission in April 1942 into the Indian Army.
[1] He spent many years in Egypt, Sudan and India before returning to England in 1951 and joining the Royal Engineers as a captain, working at the War Office and ultimately being promoted to the rank of major.
[2] He is best known for his book Cricket: A History of its Growth and Development throughout the World (1970)[4] which has been described as "indispensable" but also as "spikily controversial and vigorously wide-ranging".
[6] An eccentric and difficult man – "Bowen never made an influential friend he couldn’t turn into an avowed adversary".