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Name: COWAN, John Black Templer MBE
Photo Source: Rhino Link vol 2, no.18, Apr 2013
Nee: son of Edward Reilly Cowan of Kimioi Estate, Kabete
Birth Date: 18 Oct 1922 Nairobi
Death Date: 22 Nov 2012 Marlborough
Profession: Asst Commissioner of Prisons
Area: Kimioi Estate, Kabete
Married: 1. In Nakuru 23 Aug 1947 Margaret Elizabeth Simpson b. 27 May 1921 Leicester, d. 14 Nov 1983 Cambridge; 2. In Kenya 1958 Constance Deirdre Fetherstonhaugh Ryland b. 26 Sep 1933 Mombasa, d. 12 Nov 2009 London (dau of Richard Desmond Fetherstonhaugh Ryland)
Children: 1. Helen Margaret (13 May 1948 Kenya-28 May 1976 East Sussex); son; 2. one dau (1965)
Book Reference: Kenton, Foster, Childhood
War Service: 4 KAR, Burma
School: Kenton College - left 1937 for Prince of Wales
General Information:
John Black Templer - KR 2726
Foster - 1946 joined Prison Service; on staff of Kabete Approved School; set up Borstal unit at Shikusha, Kakamega; married daughter of Mr R.D.G. Ryland; 1965 retired as Deputy Commissioner of Prisons; worked with Bank of England
Childhood - John Cowan - "My parents and sister arrived in Kenya in 1921 and I was born in Nairobi a year later. We lived on a coffee estate at Kabete, where my father was the manager, in a wood and corrugated iron bungalow with no running water and no inside sanitation. It was our home for 14 years …….. I had been at Kenton for 2 years when, during the holidays, my mother told me I would not be returning next term. My father, more in tune with academic life than farming, had financial difficulties ……… for 6 months I lived with my parents on a farm in Sotik, where my father was estate manager. ………… Church of Scotland mission at Kikuyu, where my father was again a locum, this time as a teacher. ………. My father was developing a golf course, (still in existence as Sigona Golf Club) ………. Eventually my parents moved to Kakamega and I became a boarder at the Prince of Wales School ….." "On leaving school I enlisted in the army, serving for 5 and a half years during the war, in East Africa and the Far East. On discharge I joined the Kenya Prisons Service, retiring after 19 years with the rank of Deputy Commissioner. Later with a complete change of course I worked for a further 19 years in the Bank of England in the City of London.
Terence Gavaghan, Of Lions and Dungbeetles, 1999 Although of medium height and light build he had been victor ludorum at the privately owned Kenton School in the Rift Valley, from where he went on to the Prince of Wales School. After war service he joined the Kenya Prison Service and was assigned to the Mwea group of detention camps in 1957. He was immaculately turned out at all times, quietly in command of himself and his men. He had a self-deprecating sense of humour, laced with pith and irony and a quiet seemliness which concealed great tenacity.
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