It was curiosity that first prompted UQ Adjunct Professor Dr Ann Scott to begin researching the life of her grandfather, leading British civil servant Ernest Gowers.
Gowers began his civil service career in 1903 and was close to the centre of many of the momentous events of the first half of the 20th century.
His greatest challenges though were to come toward the end of his career. During World War II, he ran London’s Civil Defence from a bunker under the Natural History Museum.
In 1949, he chaired a Royal Commission into capital punishment – an experience which converted him into a convicted and influential abolitionist.
Described by Times Online as one of the greatest civil servants of his day, Gowers only became famous after he wrote Plain Words in 1948.
Designed to woo officials away from pompous and over-elaborate language, the book became a bestseller and remains in print today.
“As one of the few surviving members of his family who can remember him, I wanted to place on record some of the things I recall about him,” said Dr Scott, who lectures in criminology and public policy at UQ.
“It rapidly became a more intellectual exercise as I began my search through the British archives and discovered why a man I only knew as a kindly grandfather earned such a formidable reputation.”
Following the success of Plain Words, Gowers was invited by Oxford University Press to prepare a new edition of Fowler’s Modern English Usage – a task that occupied the final 10 years of his life.
“I had wondered how I could write anything about this. However, in addition to some of the treasures I found in the Oxford University Press archives, I found that the family papers included letters he wrote to a colleague discussing the revision as well as describing the progress of the illness which was to eventually take his life,” Dr Scott said.
Gowers died at the age of 85, shortly after capital punishment was abolished in Britain.
Like her grandfather, Dr Scott was also a civil servant, with 10 of her 20 years spent as a senior executive in the Queensland Police Service. She was awarded an Australian Public Service Medal for her efforts.
Published by Palgrave Macmillan, Ernest Gowers Plain Words and Forgotten Deeds will be launched at the Co-op Bookstore at The University of Queensland at 5pm on Thursday, November 19.
Media: Gillian Ievers (07 3365 1524, g.ievers@uq.edu.au)
