Welsh Journals

his area of study was always tenuous and unreliable and the sheer viruosity and internal coherence of Bowen's work carried its own conviction. Apart from this specialised field Bowen's interests ranged widely; he was truly a polymath to divide him inventorially would dizzy the arithmetic of memory'. For many years he was a Sunday school teacher in this chapel; in his retirement he lectured on church history in the School of Theology. His first book, 'Wales: A study in Geography and History' (1941) and the volume of his essays, 'Geography, Culture and Habitat' (1975) indicate his versatility, although Wales was always a common denominator. It is perhaps sufficient to recall three recent St. David's Day bilingual publications by the University of Wales Press, all written by Emrys Bowen. In 1974 he wrote on David Samwell (Dafydd Ddu Meddyg) 1751-1798' who accompanied Captain Cook on his voyages; in 1978 his topic was 'John Hughes (Yuzovka) 1814-1889' the founder of the city of Yuzovka, later Stalino, now Donetsk; in 1983 his subject was Saint David, and how fitting it was that the last work published in his lifetime was on Dewi Sant. All the three books had the one feature in common; they were about people, for his was always a concern with people rather than with causes or with power, with the age old tradition of the story teller and the teacher, rather than with the operations of the academic politician, the publicist or the manipulator. True his work was widely and formally recognised and he obtained a multiplicity of honours. He was president of the Institute of British Geographers in 1958, president of Section E of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1960 and president of the Geographical Association in 1962. He was awarded the Murchison Grant by the Royal Geographical Society for studies on the Geography of Wales in 1958. In 1949 he was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and in 1967 he was president of the Cambrain Archaeological Society. He was awarded an Honorary LL.D. by the University of Wales and an Honorary D.Univ. by the Open University. He was Warden of the Guild of Graduates of the University of Wales. He was an Honorary member of the Gorsedd of the National Eisteddfod. But inspite of all these honours it was his willingness to devote his time to lecture on geographical and non- geographical topics throughout Wales and England, to audiences in large lecture theatres which he nearly always filled, and in small village halls, which was his most characteristic quality. At the same time he was as willing to talk and devote his attention with complete generosity as much to the hesitant first year student as to anyone else, at any hour of the day, any day of the week. This was at the heart of the reason why he was such a sympathetic and such a distinctive personality to generations of his students who inevitably recall him with affection. But all this made tremendous demands on his time and energy by people in all walks of life, from primary school children working on local projects to