Henry Watson Fowler

Henry Watson Fowler (10 March 1858 - 26 December 1933) was an English schoolmaster, lexicographer and commentator on usage, notable for both Fowler's Modern English Usage and the Concise Oxford Dictionary.

Born in Devon, he graduated from Rugby and Balliol College, Oxford, then spent 17 years teaching English grammar at a secondary school in Yorkshire. He then went to London and worked as a freelance journalist.

In 1903 he moved to the island of Guernsey, where he worked with his brother Francis George Fowler on The King's English, a work with the novel purpose of encouraging writers to be more simple and direct in their style.

Reference

• Jenny McMorris, The Warden of English: The Life of H.W. Fowler (Oxford University Press, 2001) ISBN 0198662548