Antony Rowe

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For other people with similar names, see Anthony Rowe (disambiguation).
Antony Rowe
Born
Antony Duncan Rowe

4 August 1924
Cookham Dean, Berkshire, England
Died5 December 2003
Upper Swainswick, Somerset, England
EducationEton
Occupation(s)Rower and printer
Spouses
  • Jennifer Renwick
  • Miranda Noel-Buxton (née Chisenhale-Marsh)
  • Charlotte Savage
Parent(s)George Duncan Rowe
Molly Allen
RelativesSir Robert Renwick (father-in-law)
Antony Rowe
Medal record
Men's rowing
Representing  England
British Empire Games
Silver medal – second place 1950 Auckland Single Sculls

Antony Duncan Rowe (4 August 1924 – 5 December 2003), or Tony Rowe,[1] was an English rower who competed for Great Britain at the 1948 Summer Olympics and won the Diamond Challenge Sculls at Henley Royal Regatta in 1950. He was later a printer during a period of great change and developed "a successful model for short-run printing".[2]

Early life

Rowe was born at

Second World War and joined the Royal Navy Submarine Service straight from school. In 1944 he was posted to the Far East, where he took part in the Japanese surrender of Hong Kong[2]
(30 August 1945).

Rowing career

After the war Rowe went to

Merv Wood—who had won both the Olympic gold and the Diamond Sculls in 1948.[1] Rowe coached the Oxford boat from 1954 to 1956 and in 1963.[2]

Printing career

Rowe started work with the Pitman Press in

British obscenity law, when he printed for Penguin Books the first unexpurgated edition of Lady Chatterley's Lover, which other printers had avoided.[2] In the event, with 200,000 copies in storage during October/November 1960, Penguin alone was prosecuted and acquitted.[7] Rowe designed and printed The Western Type Book (1960), with specimen pages of all the many different types held by Western in different sizes which became a bible for publishers' production managers. Rowe returned to the Pitman Press in 1972. He had identified a market for short-run printing and set out to make profitable runs of 100 or fewer when the threshold was generally considered to be 1,000 copies. After his retirement from Pitman Press in 1983, he established Antony Rowe Ltd in Chippenham, Wiltshire, using new techniques and equipment to cut costs; it became a successful business thanks to his ability to "think small".[2]
His second encounter with censorship occurred when he inadvertently became subject of a Fatwa after printing 100 sample copies of 'Satanic Verses'. One evening his dinner with Charlotte was disturbed by a dozen SAS officers crawling up his lawn late at night when the security alarm was set off in error. Antony Rowe Ltd has since become part of the CPI SAS printing group and is now a leading provider of print on demand services to both traditional publishers and new self-publishing services that act as an intermediary between the author and the printer, such as CompletelyNovel.[8]

He also published books of his own: 'For Lucasta with Rue', 'Poems by Torquatus' and 'Torquatus - A Half Life'. These were collections of poems, mainly by Horace (in the original Latin) and Houseman, Lovelace and a curious friend, Torquatus, who a note by S. A. Gitta (a pun on the Latin for Arrow) said died in 1969, the year of his divorce from Jenny. In 1986 he published Neurosis Induced Cannibalism in Antarctic Pigs, illustrated by his son Giles, under the pseudonym of P. Trotter.[9]

Personal life

In 1954, Rowe married Jennifer Renwick, the daughter of the first Independent TV magnate Sir Robert Renwick.[10] In 1964 Sir Robert was awarded the last hereditary peerage. The marriage was dissolved in 1969, and Antony married Miranda Noel-Buxton (née Chisenhale-Marsh) in 1970. His third marriage was to Charlotte Savage in 1985.[2]

Antony Rowe had three brothers, Ronnie, Michael and David, and three sisters, Heather, Grace and Glory, who entertained each other as children playing music together. Antony was an accomplished pianist who was never short of female vocal accompanists. He appreciated beauty and was Chair of the Bath Arts Festival for several years. He has two children, by his first wife Jenny: Giles (b 1956) and Antonia (b 1959). His family's favourite dog was his German Short Haired Pointer, Apollo, who accompanied him to the Bath Press every day.

Rowe never lived far from Bath. He died in Upper Swainswick, Somerset, at the age of 79.[2]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c "Rowing at the 1948 London Summer Games: Men's Single Sculls Semi-Finals". SR/Olympic Sports (sports-reference.com/olympics). Retrieved 2014-04-09. See also the linked pages "Tony Rowe" and "Merv Wood".
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Barker, Nicolas (17 December 2003).""Antony Rowe: Olympic oarsman turned printer, with an ability to 'think small'"".
    Independent.co.uk. Archived from the original
    on 8 August 2011. Retrieved 25 May 2009.     . The Independent. Archived 2011-08-08. Retrieved 2014-04-09.
  3. ^ "Antony Rowe". The Telegraph. 11 December 2003. Retrieved 20 January 2016.
  4. ^ Many retellings to his children over dinner.
  5. Excel spreadsheet). [Wingfield Sculls] Sheet 1, Record of races [1830–2006]. Rowing Results
    . Rachel Quarrell's Rowing Service (rowingservice.com). Retrieved 2014-04-09.
  6. ^ As "AD Rowe, Leander Club".
    "Henley Royal Regatta: Results of Final Races 1946–2003" Archived 16 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine. Friends of Rowing History (rowinghistory.net). Retrieved 2014-04-09.
  7. ^ "1960: Lady Chatterley's Lover sold out". On This Day 1950–2005: 10 November. BBC News. Retrieved 2014-04-09.
  8. ^ Sheahan, Tim (2 March 2009). "CPI debut printer for completelynovel.com self-publishing service". PrintWeek (printweek.com). Archived from the original on 12 September 2009. Retrieved 9 April 2014.
  9. ^ "Antony Rowe". Telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 24 March 2017.
  10. ^ "The Renwick family", second of 2 (photo with supporting data). National Portrait Gallery, London.
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