Jeremiah Owen (22 February 1802 – 2 August 1850) was a mathematician, naval architect and Chief Metallurgist to the Admiralty during the first half of the nineteenth century. Owen took part in the debates over the professionalization of naval architecture in the Royal Navy and was active in campaigns for Polish human rights in the 1830s. He his chiefly known for his scientific work on metals in the design of naval vessels.Mike Chrimes, “Jeremiah Owen fl.1800 – 1850, A Biographical Dictionary of Civil Engineers in Great Britain and Ireland, Vol 1, 497
Early life Jeremiah Owen was the eldest son of the architect and engineer Jacob Owen and his wife Mary Underhill, through whom he was related to the mystic and pacifist Evelyn Underhill, Bishop Francis Underhill, the Professor of Anatomy and President of the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh Charles Edward Underhill, and the jurist and author, Sir Arthur Underhill.John Jacob Howard, 'Arthur Underhill, LLD' Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica, Vol. 5 (London: Hamilton, Adams and Co, 1864), 78-79 Owen was born in London in 1802, and spent his formative years in Portsmouth, where his father held several positions in the Royal Engineers before becoming principal architect and engineer, under John Fox Burgoyne’s leadership of the board of public works in Ireland. Unlike many of his brothers who became prominent architects in England and Ireland, Owen chose to follow a career in the navy and Admiralty.M J McDermott, 'Notable Irish architectural families: 7. The Owens,' The Architectural Forum (Dublin), 1982, 96-98
Education
Owen's path to becoming a naval architect seems largely to have been accidental. In 1816, when he was 14, the School of Naval Architecture was established at the Portsmouth Naval Base as part of the Royal Naval College.1816 - School of Naval Architecture Opened, The new school enrolled scholars from age 14 and accepted him into the programme following a competitive examination. Training in advanced Euclidean Geometry (as well as the study of French, History, and Geography) earned scholars the moniker the 'Euclid Boys' from some quarters of the Navy.Report of the Royal Commission on Scientific Instruction and the Advancement of Science, 1872 -1875, The Devonshire Report, 55, cited in H W Dickinson, 'Joseph Woolley - Pioneer of British Naval Education; 1848-1879' Education Research and Perspectives 34:1 (2007): 4 Until this time, it seems likely that he would follow one of his father's career paths in civil engineering or architecture, either within the Royal Engineers or by joining the elder Owen's private architectural practice based in Portsmouth, as did his younger brother Thomas Ellis Owen.Sue Pike, Thomas Ellis Owen: Shaper of Portsmouth, 'Father of Southsea' (Tricorn Books, 2010) Owen excelled in his chosen field. Graduating in 1825, he become one of the most prominent graduates of the school in the 1830s and 1840s.'School of Naval Architecture, Portsmouth: A List of Students of Naval Architecture at Present belonging to His Majesty's Dockyards and Naval Service; showing the Nature and Dates of their respective Appointments and the Period where they respectively left the School,' The United Service Journal and Naval and Military Magazine 1833 Part II, June 1833, 279
Debate over professionalising naval architecture Almost from the beginning of his time at the School of Naval Architecture, Owen was drawn into the political struggle over the role of educational training as a pathway to the officer class. Though established almost a century earlier, the Royal Naval College and the School for Naval Architecture was embroiled in an ever more wounding political assault from Whigs in the 1820s and 1830s as to the institutions' utility to the Royal Navy.Rev. Joseph Woolley, "On the education of Naval Architects," Transactions of the Institution of Naval Architects, vol. 5, 1864Karel Davids, Global Ocean of Knowledge, 1660-1860: Globalization and Maritime Knowledge in the Atlantic World (London: Bloomsbury, 2020)
This attack on the college and school, which eventually led to their closures in 1837, traded on the belief that traditional models of naval apprenticeship offered the best route for training the officer class and master ship-wrights. Under this model, historians W.H Dickinson and D.K. Brown have argued, family ties and patronage, rather than meritocracy, were regarded as the favored method of recruitment.D K Brown, Before the Ironclad: Development of Ship Design, Propulsion and Armament in the Royal Navy, 1815–1860, London: Conway Maritime Press, (1990), 20–26H.W. Dickinson, "Joseph Woolley – Pioneer of British Naval Education; 1848–1879,"Education Research and Perspectives, Vol. 34, No. 1, 2007, 3–4
Contribution to the Seppings debate
Whig reforms of the Royal Navy which would bring about the dismissal of the eminent naval architect Robert Seppings as Surveyor of the Navy formed the immediate context for Owen's first known intervention in the wider debate in 1832.Fred M. Walker, Ships and Shipbuilders: Pioneers of Design and Construction (Barnsley: Pen and Sword, 2010) Sepping's support for scientific training in naval architecture, was matched by the dislike for the School of Naval Architecture by his proposed replacement, William Symonds. At the second meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in June, Owen had encouraged the Association's members to promote the idea of large-scale scientific experimentation within government circles.Jeremiah Owen, 'Remarks upon the Neglect of Naval Architecture in Great Britain' in The Report of The British Association For The Advancement of Science: First And Second Meetings; At York in 1831, And At Oxford In 1832, Including Its Proceedings, Recommendations, And Transactions (London: John Murray, 1833), 597 His 'Remarks upon the Neglect of Naval Architecture in Great Britain' were read alongside George Harvey's suggestion for the 'cooperation of men of science [to study the subject of Naval Architecture], under the auspices of a public Board.'George Harvey, 'On the State of Naval Architecture in Great Britain' in The Report of The British Association For The Advancement of Science: First And Second Meetings; At York in 1831, And At Oxford In 1832, Including Its Proceedings, Recommendations, And Transactions (London: John Murray, 1833), 597 Neither Owen nor Harvey's suggestion found traction within the Navy. Their interventions had also come too late to help Seppings who had been forced to resign his position just six days earlier.Edward Milligen Beloe, 'Seppings, Sir Robert (1767 -1840),' Dictionary of National Biography, Volume 51 (London, 1885), 249-251 The appointment of Symonds, an amateur ship designer, in Seppings’ place sealed the fate of the school.
Contribution to debate over scientific method in naval architecture Competing positions about the relative merits of scientific training and established practice governed by rule of thumb emerged in Symonds’ subsequent moves against the School of Naval Architecture. At a presentation on naval architecture at the third meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in June 1833, Owen continued to represent the case for academic discipline and funding of naval architecture.Jeremiah Owen, ‘On Naval Architecture,’ Report of the Annual Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1833), 430 – 433 Arguing that only national governments could properly fund the scientific enquiry into naval architecture, he mounted the case for the continuation of scientific method to improve shipbuilding. He was also likely a contributor to a popular pamphlet, circulated a month earlier and widely believed to be authored by teachers and recent graduates of the School. The pamphlet questioned Seppings’ dismissal and the plight of naval architecture without proper funding.’An Apology for English Ship Builders’ in RFS Blake, Description of Various Plans for the Improvements of Naval Architecture (London: J.W. Norie, 1833), 1–48 In it, the authors argued the case for scientific training and meritocratic appointments to the technical roles in the Navy.
Such was the notoriety of the pamphlet, that Captain Frederick Marryat wrote a rejoinder in The Metropolitan Magazine, launching a counterattack on its authors, who he named as the students and staff of the School. Marryat suggested that Sir Thomas Byam Martin’s descriptions of Owen and his fellow students as ‘highly gifted young men’ was preposterous.Frederick Marryat, ‘The School of Naval Architecture,’ Metropolitan Magazine, Vol 8 Number 31 Nov 1833 Marryat delved into the parentage of the students to suggest many were not the sons of gentlemen, and so could not harbor the talent Byam Martin ascribed to them. His vicious attack on the class background of many of the students conveniently excluded Owen, whose father was a leading architect in Ireland. But it revealed the ingrained prejudice within the Navy that the college and School faced in the years leading up to its abolition in 1837.
Like his classmate, Thomas Lloyd, Owen escaped the unfortunate fate of many of the school's scholars, having recently received promotion to a scientific position within the Admiralty. But the continuing gap left in the training of scientific officers would remain for the next twenty years. Ironically, his biographer, Mike Chrimes, has argued that family contacts, rather than meritocracy, were responsible for Owen gaining an important post in the Admiralty. There is no evidence for this claim. Rather Owen's assignment role as metallurgist to the Navy, first based at Portsmouth, was the result of Inman's recommendations in the 1831.
Career Following the School of Naval Architecture's closure in 1837, Owen and members of the school were all but sidelined for promotion to master shipwright positions. Newspaper accounts sympathetic to Owen recalled that he and other 'gentlemen of the late School of Naval Architecture' suffered as other less qualified officers were 'unjustly promoted' ahead of them.London Evening Standard, 26 June 1846, 3 Survival required adaptation and retraining in specialist scientific fields. From the 1830s, it was reported that, 'seeing the discouragement which those of this class suffered in their strictly professional career, Mr. Owen turned his attention to the study of metals, and acquiring much experience in his new pursuit, was afforded the opportunity of practically applying it to the advantage of the Service.'Dover Telegraph and Cinque Ports General Advertiser, 17 August 1850, 2
Metallurgist to the Navy