John Switzer Owens facts for kids

John Switzer Owens (born July 28, 1871 – died December 6, 1941) was an important Irish doctor and engineer. He focused on protecting our environment. He invented some of the first tools to collect and measure air pollution. He also helped set up the first big network to check pollution levels in the United Kingdom.

Early Life and New Interests

John Owens was born in Enniscorthy, a town in County Wexford, Ireland. He trained to be a doctor at Trinity College Dublin. There, he earned several degrees.

In his late twenties, he decided to change his career path. He became very interested in environmental engineering. This field uses engineering to protect human health and the environment. He studied this at Durham College of Science.

Later, Owens became an expert on how coasts wear away. He also studied how to build sea defenses. He even created new types of strong barriers called groynes. These were made from reinforced concrete. He also worked as a mining engineer in Britain, Spain, and Portugal.

Fighting Air Pollution

Owens became interested in air pollution because he joined a group. This group was called the Coal Smoke Abatement Society. It later became known as the National Society for Clean Air. Today, it is part of Environmental Protection UK.

In 1917, Owens became the first secretary of a new group. This was the Committee for the Investigation of Atmospheric Pollution. It was a volunteer group of scientists. They used facilities provided by The Lancet, a medical journal. This committee later became an advisory group for the Met Office. The Met Office is the UK's national weather service.

Sir Napier Shaw was the chairman of this committee. He was also the first director of the Met Office. He called Owens the "moving spirit" behind the project. Shaw noted that Owens was both an engineer and a doctor. This made him uniquely qualified to deal with air pollution.

Warning About Smoke

In 1925, Shaw and Owens wrote a book together. It was called The Smoke Problem of Great Cities. They warned about the growing danger of air pollution. This was almost 30 years before the Great London Smog. That event sadly caused thousands of deaths.

They wrote that dirty air in cities was a "menace to public health." It also caused a lot of financial loss. The book's first page had a striking photo. It showed a man carrying a huge sack. The caption said it was "The soot fall in a minute within the county of London."

Owens spoke to the Royal Society of Arts in the same year. He was even more direct. He said that air pollution had "crept on us almost unawares." This happened as people used more raw coal. As cities grew, so many fires were in small areas. He said the air over cities was "like the inside of a huge chimney."

In 1927, Owens became the Superintendent of Observations. This was at the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. He held this important role until he passed away.

Inventing Measuring Tools

Owens is famous for improving how we measure air pollution. He invented several new tools himself. The committee he led also developed a standard tool called the deposit gauge.

This device looked like a funnel. It collected soot falling from the sky into bottles. This allowed scientists to weigh the soot. They could then compare it with deposits from other places. By 1917, deposit gauges were used in 27 locations. By 1966, this number grew to 1066. This created the first large pollution monitoring network in the UK.

According to historian Stephen Mosley, Owens understood the need for good data. Owens believed that measuring smoke was often the "first step" to controlling pollution. He said it had a "profound psychological effect" on a city. This happened when people saw how dirty their air was.

The jet dust counter – one of numerous air pollution measuring instruments that Owens invented.

Owens later created more advanced tools. These included one based on a siphon. In 1921, he invented the jet dust counter. This device sped up air samples towards glass slides. This allowed scientists to study pollution under a microscope.

Owens patented two of his inventions in Britain. One was for measuring smoke from chimneys (1911). The other was for measuring impurities in the air (1914). He held about 30 other British patents. These were for various devices. They included concrete mixers, bomb throwers, and sea defenses.

Owens' jet dust counter was one of the first tools to show something important. It proved that air pollution could travel long distances. He thought that particles he saw in England might come from "Continental fires." He believed that pollution from Germany could reach the UK.

However, Owens' jet dust counter was mostly ignored. So was the idea of long-distance pollution as a global problem. Pollution scientist Gary Fuller said Owens was years ahead of his time. He suggested that if Owens' device had been improved, we might have acted sooner. We could have prevented the acid rain crisis in Scandinavia in the 1970s and 1980s.

Legacy and Recognition

John Owens passed away in 1941. An obituary in the science journal Nature described him as a "useful and public-spirited man of science." It said he was the "moving spirit" in studying air pollution for nearly 30 years. He designed the tools, collected data, and prepared it for publication. This data helped track changes in air pollution.

In 1942, the Royal Meteorological Society honored Owens. They gave him the Symons Gold Medal. This was for his important work on air pollution. That same year, Sir George Clark also praised Owens. He recognized Owens' "pioneer work" in studying air pollution and reducing smoke.

In his 2018 book The Invisible Killer, scientist Gary Fuller wrote about Owens. He called Owens a crucial figure. He said Owens helped change air pollution science. It went from random studies by gentlemen to a planned national monitoring program.

Selected publications