Leslie Fowden

Sir Leslie Fowden (1925—2008) was a British organic chemist and plant scientist, notable for his pioneering research on phytochemistry and plant amino acids, as well as for his role in promoting agricultural research in the UK.

Leslie Fowden was born at Birch Hill House, Wardle, Rochdale on 13 October 1925, the only child of Herbert Fowden, an iron turner, and Amy Dorothy (née Rabbich), a cotton minder.

He was a diligent student who excelled at mathematics and won a fee-paying scholarship to Rochdale Grammar School for Boys (now Balderstone Technology College), where he studied from 1936 to 1943.

He gained five distinctions in the School Certificate Examinations in 1940, including mathematics, physics and chemistry.

In the 1942 Higher School Certificate (HSC) he was awarded distinctions for the same three subjects.

Fowden went on to read chemistry at University College (UCL) in a two-year intensive degree course (a special requirement for chemistry students in the war years).

Another requirement was that he also had to participate in officer training.

He was awarded a first class BSc degree in chemistry with honours, and told that he was the top student in chemistry in the University of London as a whole.

He started his PhD in late 1945, supervised jointly by Professor Ingold and by Professor E. D. Hughes of the University College of Wales, Bangor.

Ingold was the UK authority on organic reaction mechanisms, and Fowden was set to work investigating nucleophilic substitution in alkyl halides as the alkyl group became progressively larger or more branched in structure.

In 1947 Fowden accepted a post as scientific officer in the Human Nutrition Research Unit of the MRC in London.

This was a key moment in his career, marking a move to work of more direct benefit to mankind.

He was involved with two projects: (1) on kwashiorkor and a growth-retarding factor in maize bran ; and (2) a chromatographic study of peanut protein hydrolysates and their free amino acid content, as part of a scheme to improve post-war nutrition and the economy of Commonwealth countries in East Africa.

Some aspects of the chromatographic work did not fit in with the MRC’s aims, so he accepted a lectureship in plant chemistry, back at UCL, where he had greater freedom.

He set up a new lab where the main focus was on the identification and structural analysis of plant non-protein amino acids.

He recruited PhD students and technical assistants; they, and later postdoctoral research fellows and foreign visitors, discovered several new plant amino and imino acids.

Fowden isolated and characterized non-protein amino acids from a growing number and variety of plants,

emphasizing their general importance in plant nitrogen metabolism.

"'To isolate an unusual amino acid from the seeds of the lychee (Litchi chinensis) he had to buy large quantities of the fruit from Covent Garden. His UCL colleagues were invited to take home over the weekend as much of the fruit as they wished, provised that the washed stones were returned on the Monday morning'."

The degree was awarded in 1948, and the main findings were published in 1955.

Leslie Fowden married fellow chemistry student Margaret (Peggy) Oakes on 9 July 1949 at the Methodist chapel in East Ham.

They had two children:

On 31 January 1955, Leslie Fowden and his family sailed on the America from Southampton to New York, en route to Ithaca, where Fowden took up a Rockefeller Visiting Fellowship to work with Professor F. C. Steward at Cornell.

Their work together “provided one of the earliest demonstrations of how chemical data could be used to establish phylogenetic relationships within and between plant families and their constituent genera”.

The Fowdens returned to the UK aboard the Queen Mary, arriving on 21 December 1955.

Leslie Fowden made several more trips in the coming years, including:

These trips strengthened his love of travel and languages.

His researches were recognized by promotion to a readership in 1956.

In 1972 Fowden was invited to fill the post of Director of Rothamsted Experimental Station; he took up the position on 1 April 1973.

When he arrived the research being undertaken by some 500 scientists “needed reinvigoration—and new investment—to regain its past reputation for scientific excellence”.

Fragmented departments were combined into five new divisions.

In 1986 Rothamsted itself was amalgamated with other Stations across the country to form the new Institute of Arable Crops Research (IACR), and Fowden became its inaugural director.

He retired in 1988, but did not slow down.

He joined the council of the Royal Institution and became a trustee and then Director of the Foundation and Friends of Kew Gardens.

He became a scientific adviser to several international agrochemical companies, and maintained visiting professorships at the University of London and the University of Wales Swansea.

Sir Leslie Fowden died from renal and heart failure at a care home in Histon on 16 December 2008 and was cremated in Cambridge on the 29th.