up and down the field by means of ropes attached to a drum. By its use a great saving was effected in the cost of labour, and the soil was left in a better state for all purposes of husbandry. In 1860 Fowler made further improvements by bringing out his double engine tackle, the invention of which has given a great impetus to steam cultivation not only in Great Britain but also on the continent, and in the cotton districts of Egypt. The cost of one of these machines being upwards of 2,000l., their use could not become general, but by a system of lending the ploughs and charging so much a week for the loan, they at last came into greater demand. In 1860, in conjunction with Mr. Kitson and Mr. Hewitson, he established extensive manufacturing works at Hunslet, Leeds, where in 1864 nine hundred hands were employed. Between 1850 and 1864 he took out himself, and in partnership with other persons, thirty-two patents for ploughs and ploughing apparatus, reaping machines, seed drills, horseshoes, traction engines, slide valves, laying electric telegraph cables, and making bricks and tiles. The mental strain to which Fowler had been subject had wrought his brain into a state of undue activity, and he now retired to Ackworth, Yorkshire, for repose. Being recommended active exercise, he began to hunt, and in November 1864 fractured his arm by falling from his horse; tetanus ensued, from the effect of which he died at Ackworth 4 Dec. 1864. He married, 30 July 1857, Elizabeth Lucy, ninth child of Joseph Pease, M.P. for South Durham, by whom he left five children.
[Leeds Mercury, 6, 9, and 16 July, and 7 Dec. 1864; Taylor's Biographia Leodiensis, 1865, pp. 525–8, 672; Practical Mag. 1875, v. 257–62, with portrait; Gent. Mag. January 1865, p. 123; Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, 1865, p. 14; Journal of Royal Agricultural Soc. 1854–63, vols. xv–xxiv.; Transactions of the Soc. of Engineers for 1868, pp. 299–318.]
FOWLER, RICHARD (1765–1863), physician, was born in London 28 Nov. 1765, and, though he lived to a greater age than any other member of the College of Physicians, was of feeble health when a child. He was educated at Edinburgh and studied medicine there, but while a student visited Paris in the times before the revolution. Returning to Edinburgh in 1790 he continued his medical studies, and graduated M.D. 12 Sept. 1793 with a dissertation ‘De Inflammatione.’ He was also a member of the celebrated ‘Speculative Society,’ to which he contributed essays. He was admitted licentiate of the College of Physicians of London 21 March 1796, and settled in practice at Salisbury, where he passed the remainder of his life. He was at once elected physician to the Salisbury Infirmary, and held the office till 1847. He was elected F.R.S. in 1802, and often took part in the meetings of the British Association, to attend which and to read a paper there he made the journey from Salisbury to Aberdeen in 1859, when close upon ninety-four years of age. He was successful in practice, and occupied a leading position in Salisbury for many years. He died 13 April 1863 at Milford, near Salisbury, in his ninety-eighth year, an age reached by very few persons in the annals of medicine.
Fowler always kept up an interest in science, without producing any notable original work. When a student in Edinburgh, after his return from Paris, he was interested in the recent discoveries of Galvani on the form of electricity called by his name, and made numerous experiments on the subject, which were published in a small volume entitled ‘Experiments and Observations on the Influence lately discovered by M. Galvani, and commonly called Animal Electricity,’ 8vo, Edinburgh, 1793. It contains, also, observations on the action of opium on nerves and muscles. Many years after Fowler published two small books on the psychology of persons in whom the senses are defective, viz. ‘Observations on the Mental State of the Blind and Deaf and Dumb,’ 12mo, Salisbury, 1843; 2nd edit. 1860; and ‘The Physiological Processes of Thinking, especially in Persons whose Organs of Sense are Defective,’ 12mo, Salisbury, 1849; 2nd edit. 1852. These works show some reading, and contain interesting observations, but are wanting in lucidity and in philosophical method. He also wrote ‘On Literary and Scientific Pursuits as conducive to Longevity,’ Salisbury, 1855, 12mo. Fowler appears to have written nothing on purely medical subjects, but contributed memoirs to the ‘Proceedings of the British Association,’ some of which were published separately.
[Salisbury and Winchester Journal, 18 April 1863 (original memoir); Lancet, 25 April 1863; Munk's Coll. of Phys. 1878, ii. 447.]
FOWLER, ROBERT (1726?–1801), archbishop of Dublin and chancellor of the order of St. Patrick, third son of George Fowler of Skendleby Thorpe, Lincolnshire, by Mary, daughter and coheiress of Robert Hurst, was a king's scholar at Westminster School in 1744. Thence he went to Trinity College, Cambridge, and graduated B.A. 1747, M.A. 1751, and D.D. 1764. In 1756 he was appointed chaplain to George II, and
