Frank Philip Bowden died in Cambridge after a long illness on 3 September 1968 in his 66th year. At the time of his death he was Professor of Surface Physics at the University of Cambridge and Director of Surface Physics, a sub-department of the Cavendish Laboratory. Bowden was a man of many talents and could have made his mark as a writer, as a lecturer, as an aesthete, as a politician and statesman, as an administrator and man of affairs, as a scientist. In a sense he was, in fact, all these but his deepest and most sustained interest throughout his life was his laboratory and the challenge and excitement of scientific research. He was, indeed, an experimental scientist of great originality, perception and versatility.