Charles Cowan

Charles Cowan FRSE (7 June 1801 – 1889) was a Scottish politician and paper-maker.

Life

He was born in Charlotte Street in Edinburgh on 7 June 1801, the son of Alexander Cowan, papermaker and philanthropist, and Elizabeth Hall, daughter of George Hall a merchant in Crail in Fife. He was the eldest of eleven children, eight of whom survived until adulthood. He was educated at Penicuik Parish School 1806-11 and then the High School in Edinburgh. He then attended university both in Edinburgh (1814–17) and Geneva (1817-18).

He then followed his father into the paper-making industry.

He wrote the article on papermaking for the Encyclopaedia Britannica. In May 1819, he was sent to learn the papermaking trade at St Mary Cray, Kent, where he worked at either Lay's or Hall's mill on the River Cray.

In the general election of June 1847, he ran as a Radical free-trade candidate in Edinburgh, defeating the incumbent Whig Thomas Babington Macaulay. His initial election was declared null and void due to his being a party to a government contract, but he was re-elected in a second election that December. He was re-elected in the 1852 election in second place on the ballot, and returned unopposed in the 1857 election. He did not stand in 1859, and retired from politics.

Charles Cowan (cricketer)

Charles Frederick Roy Cowan DSO (18 September 1883 – 22 March 1958) was a Welsh-born English cricketer who played first-class cricket in 27 matches for Warwickshire between 1909 and 1921, and in two matches for armed forces cricket teams in 1919. He was born at Glangrwyney, Crickhowell, Brecknockshire and died in hospital at Leamington Spa, Warwickshire.

Cowan was an amateur right-handed middle-order or opening batsman whose appearances in regular cricket were restricted by his career in the Royal Navy. He was educated at the Britannia Royal Naval College at Dartmouth, Devon, passing out in 1899. As a naval cadet, he was posted to HMS Crescent and then in 1902 as an acting sub-lieutenant to HMS Revenge, a pre-Dreadnought battleship. The following year he was deployed as a full sub-lieutenant to the depot ship HMS Orion, based in Malta, for operation on the torpedo boat destroyer HMS Seal and he was still there when promoted to full lieutenant in 1905. At the start of 1907, still lieutenant, he was sent to the newly commissioned HMS Hibernia, flagship of the North Atlantic Fleet, and then in 1911 he was posted to the refitted HMS Cumberland. By the end of the First World War, Cowan had reached the rank of Commander and was in charge of HMS Nairana, a converted ferry used to launch seaplanes which was deployed off the northern coast of Russia during the North Russia Campaign of UK involvement in the Russian Civil War. In retirement in 1928, he was promoted from the rank fo Commander to Captain.