I . David Owen
(1938– )
a British politician who became Foreign Secretary in the Labour government in 1977, but left the Labour Party in 1981 and, with three other politicians, started the SDP (Social Democratic Party). He was leader of the SDP from 1983 to 1990. In 1992 Owen was made a life peer , and in the same year he was appointed with Cyrus Vance to lead the international effort to end the war in former Yugoslavia.
II . Robert Owen
(1771–1858)
a Welsh industrialist whose ideas on social reform influenced the development of the Co-operative Movement and trade unions in Britain. He bought some cotton mills (= factories) in Scotland and created a model industrial community for his workers, providing them with good housing and education. The factories made a good profit and his ideas were admired even among the upper classes, though they were less enthusiastic when he argued that workers should share the ownership of factories. He started several other communities, including New Harmony in the US, but these were less successful.
III . Wilfred Owen
(1893–1918)
an English poet who fought in World War I and whose poems are about the horrors of war and the waste of life it causes. He was killed a week before the end of the war, and his poems were published two years later by his friend Siegfried Sassoon . Six of Owen’s poems were set to music in Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem (1962).