page_title: Sir John Fowler, 1st Baronet
section_title: Other activities and professional recognition
hierarchical_section_title: Sir John Fowler, 1st Baronet / Other activities and professional recognition
caption_attribution_description: English: John Fowler funerary monument, Brompton Cemetery, London
context_page_description: Sir John Fowler, 1st Baronet, KCMG, LLD, FRSE was an English civil engineer specialising in the construction of railways and railway infrastructure. In the 1850s and 1860s, he was engineer for the world's first underground railway, London's Metropolitan Railway, built by the "cut-and-cover" method under city streets. In the 1880s, he was chief engineer for the Forth Bridge, which opened in 1890. Fowler's was a long and eminent career, spanning most of the 19th century's railway expansion, and he was engineer, adviser or consultant to many British and foreign railway companies and governments. He was the youngest president of the Institution of Civil Engineers, between 1865 and 1867, and his major works represent a lasting legacy of Victorian engineering.
context_section_description: Fowler stood unsuccessfully for parliament as a Conservative candidate in 1880 and 1885. His standing within the engineering profession was very high, to the extent that he was elected president of the Institution of Civil Engineers for the period 1866-67, its youngest president. Through his position in the Institution and through his own practice, he led the development of training for engineers. 
  In 1865/67, he purchased the adjacent estates of Braemore and Inverbroom, near Ullapool in Ross-shire, Scotland, comprising 44,000 acres and becoming one of the premier Deer Forests (sporting estates) of the Highlands. He built the substantial Braemore House (since demolished), where he entertained at the highest levels of politics and society. He developed a hydro-electric scheme, fed from the artificial Home Loch, planted extensive woodlands on the steep valley sides, and created 12 km of recreational walks through them, including suspension footbridges over the Corrieshalloch and Strone Gorges (the former now an NTS property). He also developed a network of stalkerpaths. He was appointed a Justice of the Peace and a Deputy Lieutenant of the County. Lady Fowler here became a noted botanist.
  He listed his recreations in Who's Who as yachting and deerstalking and was a member of the Carlton Club, St Stephen's Club, the Conservative Club and the Royal Yacht Squadron. He was also President of the Egyptian Exploration Fund. In 1885 he was made a Knight Commander of the Order of Saint Michael and Saint George as thanks from the government for allowing the use of maps of the Upper Nile valley he had had made when working on the Khedive's projects. They were the most accurate survey of the area and were used in the British Relief of Khartoum. 
  In 1887 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
  Following the successful completion of the Forth Bridge in 1890, Fowler was created a baronet, taking the name of his Scottish estate as his territorial designation. Along with Benjamin Baker, he received an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from the University of Edinburgh in 1890 for his engineering of the bridge. In 1892, the Poncelet Prize was doubled and awarded jointly to Baker and Fowler.
  Fowler died in Bournemouth, Dorset, at the age of 81 and is buried in Brompton Cemetery, London. He was succeeded in the baronetcy by his son, Sir John Arthur Fowler, 2nd Baronet (died 25 March 1899). The baronetcy became extinct in 1933 on the death of Reverend Sir Montague Fowler, 4th Baronet, the first baronet's third son.
caption: Funerary monument, Brompton Cemetery, London
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