24 Facts About Michael Blower

Michael Blower MBE AAdipl FRIBA FRSA was born on 1929 and is a notable British architect, activist for the preservation and restoration of England's cultural heritage and accomplished watercolourist and recorder of England's townscapes.

The Blower family are recorded in Shrewsbury, Shropshire over several centuries from around the early 1500s, largely members of the property owning merchant classes who held local power through the city's independent institutions in contrast to the gentry, who held political power from their landholdings in the countryside and exercised the highest political offices of the county and nation, such as sheriff and knight of the shire.

Sons of the Blower family have been hereditary freemen of the city since before the time of the Reform Act 1832 and Michael's great-grandfather and grandfather John had built up a successful business in the middle to late 1800's as cabinetmakers and house furnishers there, later run by John's younger brother Benjamin after John's untimely and early death.

Michael Blower was born the middle of three children in Brussels and raised in the neighbourhood of Ixelles, with French as his first language.

In 1939 and as a British citizen by birth, Michael Blower fled Belgium with his family before the advance of the German Army and left on the last civilian boat to leave the country as war began.

Michael Blower attended a number of schools as the family settled into English life during the chaos of war but spent a happy six years at Douai Abbey School, moving onto the Portsmouth College of Art to study architecture.

Michael Blower spent a short period in the late 1950s working at an architectural practice in Minneapolis, by the name of Willard Thorsen.

Michael Blower took over the practice in its entirety in 1968 on the latter's retirement.

Michael Blower completed a number of fine restorations and extensions to country houses in Surrey in the 1980s and 1990s.

Michael Blower did these in a loose partnership with the prominent Chiswick-based architect, Roderick Gradidge.

John Clenshaw was a lifelong employee of Michael Blower, first joining the practice as a young apprentice in 1947 when both Arthur and Leonard Stedman were working in partnership.

Michael Blower became an Associate with Michael and remained in the service of the practice into semi-retirement in the late 2000s, an almost unique record of singular service of over 60 years.

Michael Blower was mayor of Waverley Borough Council in 1995 and served as a borough councillor and Surrey County Councillor for over 20 years, representing the ward of Farnham.

Michael Blower was for long involved in the recording, preservation and valuing of West Surrey's architectural heritage through his involvement over 40 years with the Farnham Trust Ltd and the Farnham Society, for which he served variously as president and chairman.

Michael Blower was influential in arguing for the preservation of the Farnham Pottery, the last working bottle kiln in England, the Brightwells Gardens and the Redgrave Theatre in the town centre.

Michael Blower ran a weekly column called Environmental Viewpoint in the Farnham Herald Newspaper between 1986 and 1991, with Susan Farrow.

Michael Blower's great-grandfather was the American Jurist, philanthropist and US Ambassador to Belgium and Russia at the turn of the 20th century, Judge Lambert Tree.

Michael Blower married Bernadette Muuls, Brussels-born, niece of the prominent Belgian diplomat and sometime Belgian Ambassador to Germany and the UN in Geneva, Baron Fernand Muuls, in 1958.

Michael Blower was elected Fellow RIBA in 1969 and Fellow RSA in 1987.

Michael Blower has filled over 200 sketchbooks with thousands of drawings of the people and places of West Surrey.

The eldest child, Patrick Michael Blower, MA is the noted British cartoonist and illustrator, formerly Evening Standard diary cartoonist and Sunday Times feature cartoonist.

Michael Blower is currently the chief political cartoonist at The Telegraph and has been a contributor to the BBC, Guardian Online and Private Eye over many years.

Michael Blower ceased being involved in the day-to-day operation of the practice in 2007, but continues as an architect.

Major John Michael Blower, soldier, explorer and landscape conservationist was a cousin.