Bower, Stephen Ernest Dykes (1903-1994), architect

British church architect and Gothic Revival designer best known for hBrother of the organist Sir John Dykes Bower.

Born in Gloucester on 18 April 1903, the second of the four sons of Ernest Dykes Bower, general practitioner and ophthalmic surgeon, and his wife, Margaret Dora Constance, the youngest daughter of John William Sheringham, archdeacon of Gloucester. The organist Sir John Dykes Bower was his brother.

Educated at Cheltenham College and then was admitted to Merton College, Oxford, as an organ scholar in 1921
1924 - graduated with a third-class degree in English in 1924
A meeting with Sir Ninian Comper encouraged him to proceed to study architecture at the Architectural Association

1931 - set up practice moving to Quendon Court, near Saffron Walden, Essex, in 1933, where he lived and ran an office for the remainder of his life.

He is known for his work on Westminster Abbey, Bury St Edmunds Cathedral and the Chapel at Lancing College. He carried out a number of projects for Magdalene College.

He died at Quendon Court, Essex, on 11 November 1994. He never married.

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography