# Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Fowler, William Warde

​FOWLER, WILLIAM WARDE (1847–1921), historian and ornithologist, born at Langford Budville, Somerset, 16 May 1847, was the second son of John Coke Fowler, stipendiary magistrate at Merthyr Tydfil and afterwards at Swansea, by his first wife, Augusta Bacon, granddaughter of John Bacon, R.A. [q.v.]. After two years at the school of the Rev. F. Kilvert at Bath, and tuition from his father, he went in 1860 to Marlborough ​College, where the teaching of Francis Edward Thompson developed his powers. He entered New College, Oxford, in 1866, and after a term won a scholarship at Lincoln College, where he gained much from contact with Mark Pattison, the rector, and Henry Nettleship. After taking a second class in classical moderations in 1868 and a first class in ‘greats’ in 1870, he became fellow of Lincoln College in 1872, and tutor in 1873, undertaking the teaching of Roman history for his own college and Oriel. He was sub-rector from 1881 to 1906, and during that time had a leading influence in the college. Remaining tutor till 1910, he then retired to Kingham, where, since 1873, he had enjoyed a country home and entertained his pupils; there he lived with his sister Alice, and after her death in 1917, with his two younger sisters, until his death, 14 June 1921. His love and pursuit of music were lifelong: Mozart was his favourite composer. His other recreations were walking, fishing, and, in early days, climbing, always with an eye alert for the lie of the land and for everything around him. Country life, the manners of men and of animals, were his constant study. By long and patient observation, overcoming defects of sight and hearing, he became an authority on birds and their migrations, and made a special contribution to the life-history of the marsh-warbler. He loved birds and led others to love and observe them. In his books on birds and in Kingham, Old and New (1913) he is a Gilbert White, with equal charm and more scientific knowledge. Deafness made him retiring, but his solitude was always shared by a dog or enlivened by music and the reading of Shakespeare, Scott, Dickens, or Jane Austen.
A familiar figure in Oxford, Warde Fowler shrank from public affairs, but enjoyed being a curator of the Parks and of the Botanic Garden. His ideal of a university is expressed in An Oxford Correspondence (1903), which suggests that the Oxford tutorial system needs enrichment by some element of German ‘research’ methods, and it was enforced by his practice as a tutor, which was to question his pupils and set them thinking and searching, and not to hand them ready-made opinions. Thus he formed true scholars and made lasting friendships. His central occupation was Rome, especially Rome of the Republic. By tuition, by lectures, and by books he inspired his audience and advanced knowledge. Alive to the constitutional issues, he found his chief interest in the personal and national life of Rome.
Combining political sense with historic imagination, and working on a thorough knowledge of the classical texts and their interpretation, he formed conclusions which carried conviction. ‘He knew what a Roman thought’, it was said. His most original work is to be found in his writings on Roman religion: the Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic (1899), the Gifford lectures on the Religious Experience of the Roman People (1911), and a supplementary work, Roman Ideas of Deity (1914). Tracing the process by which the animism of an agricultural people developed into a formal religion remote from conduct, he found in the Augustan revival ‘an appeal to the conscience of the people’. He threw new light on the development of particular cults, weighing evidence impartially, with no preconceived theory and with a true religious sense. His handling of special questions here and in his Roman Essays and Interpretations (1920) showed the insight into Roman character and grasp of Roman history as a whole which illuminate his Social Life at Rome in the Age of Cicero (1909). His constant communications with scholars in many fields and his wide range of interests gave a vital flavour to writing which had distinction and charm. Nothing was more characteristic than his many-sidedness; rich in varied knowledge—history, anthropology, music, birds—he brought it all to bear on the subject in hand. His three studies of the Aeneid (1915–1919), in which his ripe knowledge is blended with a fine sense of poetry, achieved a masterpiece of interpretation which gave new life and interest to Virgil’s conception of Aeneas. These and the Essays in Brief for Wartime (1916) were the fruit of a gracious old age, and they reveal the man: a character in which humanity and a love of truth and justice were the dominant qualities; gentle, but roused to anger by injustice or meanness; lovable, and saved from pedantry by humour and a just sense of values. A good portrait by Alexander Macdonald hangs in Lincoln College hall.
[Reminiscences, printed for private circulation, 1921; W. Warde Fowler, Kingham, Old and New, 1913; articles by ‘E’ in Oxford Magazine, 20 October 1921, by Bernard W. Henderson in Fortnightly Review, January 1922, and by J. Huxley in British Birds, xv, 6; personal knowledge.]
P. E. M.