Blowers CBE, Anthony (Tony)

School Governor

Date of Death: 30/03/2014

Taken from The Gazette 60:

Dr Tony Blowers was a School Governor at Ottershaw from 1975 to 1981 (Chairman 1979-81) and an Honorary member of OSOBS, who lobbied at both local and national level to prevent the closure of the School. His two sons, Colin (OT 947) and Chris (OTT 15), both attended the School and his daughter, Annie, who was a pupil at Sir William Perkins in Chertsey, appeared in the School’s production of The Mikado as Katisha, alongside people such as Khalil Lawry in the late ’60s.

Born in Putney on 11 August 1926, Dr Blowers was the son of the late Geoffrey Hathaway Blowers, Service Director, Weybridge Automobiles, and the late Louise Blowers née Jux, a Nursing Assistant. He was educated at Sloane School in Chelsea. Having become a Fellow of the Institute of Medical Laboratory Sciences (FIMLS) in 1983 and a Chartered Biologist (CBiol) in 1984, he gained a PhD from the University of Surrey at the age of 54 and an MPhil at the age of 79.

Dr Blowers served in the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) from 1945 to 1946 and the Royal West African Frontier Force (RWAFF) from 1946 to 1948 before embarking on a career with the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food (MAFF), later becoming an Experimental Officer, from 1948 to 1959. He then joined Sandoz Pharmaceuticals, rising to the position of Psychopharmacology Consultant before becoming the Director of Corporate Affairs for Magellan Medical
Communications from 1990 to 1999.

In 1983 Dr Blowers became a Freeman of The City of London and in 1988 he was made a Liveryman of The Worshipful Society of Apothecaries of London. He was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant (DL) in 1986 and a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1985. In addition, he was the High Sheriff of Surrey in 1990-91, a Director-General of the Order of St John and then Chairman of the St John Fellowship from 1995 to 2001, and served as the first Mayor of the Borough of Runnymede and its first Freeman. He thus dedicated much of his life to the service of others.

Dr Blowers was also interested in education and was appointed to the Court of the University of Surrey in 1986. He was the Chairman South East Region, Duke of Edinburgh’s Award and Member of the National Advisory Council, Duke of Edinburgh’s Award from 1990 to 1998. Furthermore, he was a Governor for Fullbrook School between 1967 and 1985 (Chairman 1981-85) and went on to become a Visiting Research Fellow, Roehampton Institute from 1998 to 2004 and a Visiting Lecturer, Department of Psychiatry, St George’s Hospital Medical School from 1999 to 2004. He was President of the Runnymede Scout Council from 1970 to 1984 and a member of the Surrey Scout Council from 1990 to 2000.

At various other times he was Acting Chief Executive of the Parkinson Society, Chairman of the Knight Foundation for Cystic Fibrosis Appeal, Administrative Secretary for the All-Party Group on Research and Development in Fertility and Contraception and a Trustee of the Psychiatry Research Trust. He was the author of books on the isolation of salmonella and tardive dyskinesia and made numerous contributions to scientific books and journals.

His recreational activities included fund-raising and gardening.Tony Blowers married in 1948, Yvonne Boiteux-Buchanan, who survives him with their daughter and two sons. He died on 30 March 2014.

Colin Blowers