Dr. William Bowie

WILLIAM BOWIE, who died on August 28, aged sixty-eight, was best known in Great Britain perhaps as one of the most significant personalities of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics. For fourteen years he was the president of the Association of Geodesy, for three he was president of the Union itself, and at the last General Assembly (Washington, 1939) he undertook the duties of the general secretary, who had been recalled to England on the outbreak of war. His influence upon the Union was not confined to his mastery of geodesy or to his eminent work in isostasy, widely known and appreciated as these are. It rested just as much upon an enthusiasm and a strength of purpose which compelled co-operation and stifled the minor jealousies which are apt to clog the wheels of international work. It was a difficult matter to succeed the late Ch. Lallemand who led the Union so brilliantly for fourteen years, but Dr. Bowie did, in fact, add to, rather than diminish, the significance of that post, because his geophysical interests were unusually wide and he could envisage no future in which geodesy did not work hand in glove with geophysics.