(1766 - 1822); Magd. and Corpus Camb. 1784, fell. 1789; ord. 1795; curate of Fulham 1795 - 1813, rect. of Paglesham 1808 - 22, sec. of British and Foreign Bible Soc. 1804 - 22.
1791 - 2 Turin (7 Nov. 1791), Piacenza, Parma (15 Nov.), Bologna, Florence (21 Nov.), Rome (7 Dec. 1791 - Feb. 1792), Naples (24 Feb.), Rome (8 Mar.), Siena, Leghorn (17 Mar.), Florence (2 - 5 Apr.), Bologna, Ferrara, Padua (15 Apr.), Venice, Verona [England Jan. 1793]
Owen published Travels into different parts of Europe in the years 1791 and 1792 with familiar remarks on places - men - and manners [1796], a series of letters describing his journeys as tutor to a Mr L (whose delicate health required a southern climate). His text throughout has a conservative, moral tone and he defined his interests as being in 'human nature in all her varieties'. He was particularly severe on Rome: 'the majesty of Papal Rome is unquestionably and irrevocably doomed to fall', he wrote, later adding 'all is pride and ostentation without; all is coldness and reserve within'. Of Naples he had seen 'no place in which nature is less restrained by the laws of morals or even decorum'. Back in Rome he noted the now 'meagre entertainments' offered by the aging Cardinal de Bernis 'who for so many years represented the French Monarch at the Court of Rome'; the exiled aunts of Louis XVI were in attendance, 'antique and venerable'. Of works of art, Owen had wished to recognise the works of Raphael 'and to worship them almost by instinct', but when this did not happen he concluded he was insufficiently acquainted with the principles of art; Guido Reni's Penitent St Peter in Bologna, however, resurrected 'all [his] powers of admiration'.