Francis Owen

Francis Owen (6 September 1886 − 22 December 1975) was a Canadian philologist and military officer. He was Professor of German and Chairman of the Department of Modern Languages at the University of Alberta, and the author of the first complete scholarly work on the history and early culture of the Germanic peoples. His works on this subject are still cited in modern scholarship. Early life and education Francis Owen was born on 6 September 1886 in Saltfleet, Ontario. He earned his bachelor's degree (1907), master's degree (1909) and Education Diploma (1910) from the University of Toronto. In 1907 Owen was the recipient of the Governor General's Medal. He did post-graduate work in Marburg (1908) and Leipzig (1910), and was an instructor in German at Victoria College at the University of Toronto from 1908-1914. Owen served in World War I as a lieutenant with the 1st Canadian Division and with the 14th Battalion of the 3rd Brigade of the Royal Montreal Regiment. In 1918, he was part of the training staff of the Young Soldiers’ Battalion. From 1919 to 1920 Owen was a modern language instructor for returned soldiers' preparatory matriculation classes at the university. He joined the University of Alberta in 1920 as a lecturer in German and was an assistant professor of modern languages there from 1925 to 1926. Owen earned his PhD from the University of Chicago in 1926 with a thesis on alliterative verse in Germanic poetry.