He published extensively, but is probably best remembered for his two-volume Manual of Diseases of the Nervous System (1886, 1888), affectionately referred to at Queen Square as the Bible of Neurology.

By the time he was 11 his father and all three of his siblings had died, and his mother returned to live in Doncaster leaving the boy with Venables relatives in Oxford, where he attended Christ Church school.

[3] On a visit to Coggeshall, Essex, where his paternal grandmother lived, his aunt introduced him to the local doctor, and suggested that he might become a medical apprentice.

Alfred Philps provided guidance to the young man, who studied for his matriculation using the resources of the local Mechanics Institute.

[3] Philps took Gowers to London to meet William Jenner, who took the young man under his wing, encouraged him, and employed him as his secretary.

He had an eminent career, after which he made his name as author of Plain Words, a book originally written as a civil service training pamphlet, and finally, undertaking the first revision of Fowler's Modern English Language.

[citation needed] A master of diagnosis, his clinical teaching at Queen Square earned him an international reputation.

[7] The British Medical Journal stated 'There can be no doubt that in neuropathology Gowers was a very remarkable teacher, and that both in that capacity and as an original investigator he did very much to enlarge its bounds and to improve its practice'.

He also disseminated the great insights of Hughlings Jackson, explaining to the medical world the dense and confusing writings of the man he referred to as his 'master'.