Sir Leslie Rowan (1908-72)

Thomas Leslie Rowan was the son of Rev. Thomas Rowan. He came to Tonbridge as a day boy and had a distinguished school career, winning a scholarship and rising to be School Captain (Head of School) in 1925-6. He was in the first teams for cricket, rugby and hockey, captaining the 1926 hockey team. From Tonbridge he won a scholarship to Queen’s Cambridge, where he not only graduated with a first in languages but also captained the Cambridge Hockey XI for two years against Oxford. He excelled at hockey, winning several international caps and captaining his country in 1937, 1938 and remarkably 1947, by which time he had become a very senior civil servant.

It was no surprise that Rowan should go on to a distinguished career as a civil servant. He started in 1930 in the Colonial Office but moved to the Treasury where he became assistant private secretary to Neville Chamberlain, who was
then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He moved from the Treasury in 1941 to become private secretary to Winston Churchill, rising in 1945 to principal private secretary. His service with Churchill was both distinguished and mutually affectionate.

After the war he returned to the Treasury, working for Stafford Cripps on European regeneration and then going to Washington for a two year stint in the embassy. From 1951 he returned to the Treasury as head of the overseas finance division at a challenging time for the British economy. He is remembered as a civil servant of immense authority and integrity. Later, on his retirement from the civil service, he held appointments at Vickers and as Chairman of the British Council. He died at his home in Somerset in 1972.