SirThomas Leslie RowanKCBCVO (22 February 1908 – 29 April 1972) was a British civil servant and industrialist.
He served in the Colonial Office and HM Treasury, and was Principal Private Secretary to Winston Churchill and Clement Attlee, before joining the British Embassy in Washington, D.C., as economic minister. After some years heading the Overseas Finance Section of the Treasury, in 1966 he moved into the private sector as head of Vickers, and from 1971 until his sudden death was chairman of the British Council.
In 1947, Rowan was briefly Permanent Secretary in the Office of the Minister for Economic Affairs, then from 1947 to 1949 returned to HM Treasury as Second Secretary,[3] gaining a knighthood in the 1949 Birthday Honours.[6] From 1949 to 1951, Rowan was economic minister at the British Embassy in Washington, D.C.,[7] and returned from there to head the Overseas Finance Section of HM Treasury.[8] In 1966, he succeeded Sir Charles Dunphie as head of the Vickers Group, with shipbuilding and armaments divisions.[9] In 1971, he became chairman of the British Council.[10]
In 1944, in Kensington, Rowan married Catherine Patricia Love, an officer in the Women's Royal Naval Service and a daughter of Brigadier R. H. A. D. Love, of Mayford, and they had four children, Sarah Josephine Rowan, Susannah V. Rowan, Charles Rowan and Mark D. R. Rowan.[6] Their daughter Susannah married Johnson Tamlyn, and their granddaughter Joanna Tamlyn married Sir Henry de la Poer Beresford-Peirse, 7th Baronet.[12] Their son Mark married Katharine Julia Fraser, a great-granddaughter of Simon Fraser, 13th Lord Lovat, and they have four children.[13]
On 13 October 1964, Rowan and his wife were the last dinner guests Winston Churchill entertained at Chartwell before his death. Lady Rowan later said of the occasion "It was sad to see such a great man become so frail".[14]
At the time of his death on 29 April 1972, Rowan was living in Brompton, LondonSW3. He left an estate valued for probate at £56,422,[15] equivalent to £940,270 in 2023.
^"ROWAN, Thomas Leslie, 1920–26" in Charles Harold Knott, The Register for Tonbridge School from 1900 to 1965 (Tonbridge School, 1966), p. 116
^ abcdJohn Fforde, Richard Sidney Sayers, John Harold Clapham, The Bank of England and Public Policy, 1941–1958 (Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 239
^Hugh Dalton, The Political Diary of Hugh Dalton, 1918–40, 1945–60 (Cape, 1986), p. 485
^ abcdBurke's Peerage, vol. 3 (2003), p. 3834; "LOVE Catherine P / Rowan / Kensington 1a 177" in England & Wales, Civil Registration Marriage Index, 1916-2005 (1944, first quarter); "Miss Catherine Patricia Love" in List of Officers on the Active List of the Royal Navy (1942), p. 390
^Diane B. Kunz, The Economic Diplomacy of the Suez Crisis (University of North Carolina Press, 2000), p. 221
^Peter Hennessy, Having it So Good: Britain in the Fifties (2007), p. 134
^"CHAIRMAN JULY 1971 - APRIL 1972" in Annual Report (British Council, 1972), p. 2: "There have been many tributes in the press to the late Sir Leslie Rowan who died suddenly on 29 April 1972. In the all too brief time he was the Council's Chairman he never spared himself..."
^Martin Gilbert, Authorised biography of Winston S. Churchill, vol. VIII: Never Despair: Winston S. Churchill 1945–1965 (1988), p. 1,357
^"ROWAN sir Thomas Leslie of 16 The Vale London S.W.3 died 29 April 1972 Probate London 4 August. £56422." in Probate Index for England and Wales (1972), p. 297