Obituaries
as an education officer, teaching younger recruits at Stonehouse Barracks in Plymouth. He married Marjorie, wearing his Naval uniform, in 1948 and also left military service in that year, leaving Devon to go to Jesus College, Cambridge, to read History. He was awarded a BA in 1951, and then returned to Devon in 1951-52 to the University College of the South-West in Exeter (now Exeter University) to do an MA Certificate in Education, in order to pursue a teaching career. Reg began his school teaching career at King Edward VI School in Louth, Lincolnshire, from 1952 to 1955, before moving on to Dulwich College in January 1956. At Dulwich, he taught History and was boarding housemaster in Ivyholme between 1963 and 1969. In Ivyholme he was a firm disciplinarian but gained the respect and friendship of the boys by his insight into their life and difficulties. He was an officer in the Army section of the CCF and organised the College timetable. He also fostered his interest in education with a series of visits to educational establishments in other parts of the world, notably Scandinavia and the USA, which resulted in American history finding its way onto the History syllabus at Dulwich. He had wanted to go to the Soviet Union for some time but had been stymied by his earlier visit to the USA. He was, however, invited with a colleague to attend a reception at the V&A museum for the Soviet President, Alexei Kosygin, who was on a state visit to London at the time. They arrived to find themselves part of a large crowd of invitees in front of the museum, as the UK’s Labour government tried to demonstrate how popular an Eastern Bloc Cold War leader was in Britain. Keen to avoid being part of a political circus, Reg went around the back of the museum where, by chance, he encountered the visiting Russian party by the back door behind a low, wooden barrier. Suddenly, the man standing next to him jumped over the barrier and grabbed Kosygin by the arm. Reg thought he was about to witness a political assassination, so he leapt over the barrier and pulled the interloper away. Security guards descended on the man (who said he only wanted to shake Kosygin’s hand) and the Russian party hurried into the museum. Reg thought it would be more interesting to follow the Soviet group and tried to follow them. Alexei Kosygin spoke no English but his daughter, Ludmilla, did and in discussion with her and the UK government’s Minister of Culture, Jennie Lee (later Baroness Lee), it was agreed that all objections to Reg’s visit to Russia should be waived and the visit duly went ahead. While in Moscow, he found that the best schools were closely based on the English public school model. Reg moved again to become headmaster of Dover Grammar School in 1969, which, like Dulwich, was also a school with a selective intake, in Kent, which was one of the few counties to retain grammar schools. But this school was run by Kent Education Authority, who were reluctant to spend any money on improving facilities. Despite these restraints, he set about building a school with an even more first rate academic education
allied with a plethora of extra-curricular activities. He remained as headmaster in Dover for 21 years until 1990, when heart problems forced his early retirement at 63, but he did not stop work for long. He had already made several contacts with the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme and then joined its committee in Kent. He also set up the Kent European Youth Association (KEYA), which encouraged interaction between young people from Kent and others throughout Europe, although at times he felt he was the only person in Kent in favour of the European Union (EU). He was awarded an OBE for services to youth in 2002 with special emphasis on his work for KEYA. He became a member of the governing council of the University of Kent at Canterbury, and was awarded a Doctorate of Letters in Canterbury Cathedral. He was a fine public speaker, never using notes and always inspiring his audiences with his knowledge and, particularly, his sense of humour. He was a noted expert on the life of Sir Winston Churchill. Reg passed away at home and leaves his wife, Marjorie, two sons and one daughter, three grandchildren and one great-grandchild. His son, Jeremy (63-72), contributed significantly to this obituary. Professor Jeremy Cowan CBE (College Governor 1980-98; Honorary Member of the Alleyn Club) 18.11.1923 – 03.09.2013 Charles Donald Cowan (but invariably known as Jeremy) was the son of a senior Royal Navy and served as a liaison officer in Dutch submarines in the Far East. After the war, he returned to Peterhouse to complete his degree and then returned to southeast Asia to lecture at Raffles College in Singapore, which became the University of Malaya in 1949. Jeremy returned to the UK in 1950 as a lecturer in Southeast Asian history at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London. In 1960 he published his doctoral thesis on British political intervention in Malaya from the 1870s onwards (titled Nineteenth-century Malaya it remains a standard text on the subject) and he was appointed to the chair of Southeast Asian History at the University of London in the same year. Jeremy was a gifted administrator and rose steadily through the ranks at SOAS to become its Director in 1976. This coincided with the tightening of university finances and in the early 1980s government funding for SOAS was slashed. The Thatcher government’s policy on fees for overseas students hit SOAS hard; it lost nearly 40% of its income and had railway manager and born in north London in 1923. After Kilburn Grammar School, he went to Peterhouse College, Cambridge, to read History in 1941, but the Second World War soon intervened. He joined the
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