Edward Joseph Lowe
- Born
- 11 November 1825
- Died
- 10 March 1900 (age 74)
Edward Lowe was a botanist, meteorologist and expert on conchology (the study of shells). His scientific observations helped to shape our understanding of the earth’s atmosphere and he was a founding member of the Royal Meteorological Society.
Lowe was born in 1825. He began his meteorological observations at the age of 15 and his first paper, A Treatise on Atmospheric Phenomena, was published when he was just 21. He went on to publish many papers on meteorology including papers about sunspots and his observations made during the solar eclipse in Spain in 1860. He invented the dry powder test for ozone in the atmosphere.
As well as meteorology, Lowe was a keen botanist. He specialised in ferns and his most celebrated work, Ferns: British and Exotic, was published in eight volumes in 1856.
Lowe also pioneered the use of nitrocellulose which was used to propagate the cuttings from plants. This was an early version of the rooting powders that gardeners use today.
In 1850 he was a founding member of the Royal Meteorological Society. He was also a Fellow of the Linnean Society, Zoological Society and the Royal Society.