Walter Edwin Owen (1880-1945) was Assistant Secretary in the Church Missionary Society Office in Belfast. He was accepted as a missionary in 1904 and ordained as a deacon in 1904 by the Bishop of London and as a priest in 1905 by the Bishop of Uganda. He served in Uganda for 14 years and then succeeded Walter Chadwick as Archdeacon of Kavirondo where he identified with the life and aspirations of the peoples of Nyanza. He was a skilful administrator. He died in 1945. His brother, Owen John Simpson was also a CMS missionary in West Africa.
Reference: Register of missionaries (clerical, lay & female) and native clergy from 1804 to 1904 (Church Missionary Society, 1905). ; Gordon Hewitt, The Problems of Success: a history of the Church Missionary Society 1910-1942 (SCM Press Ltd, 1971).
From the guide to the Papers of Archdeacon Owen, 1900-1945, (Birmingham University Information Services, Special Collections Department)
