Background
Rowe was born at Cookham Dean, Berkshire the sixth of seven children of George Rowe and his wife Molly Allen. His father had founded the stockbroking firm Rowe and Pitman in 1895 and his mother was a violinist.
Rowe was born at Cookham Dean, Berkshire the sixth of seven children of George Rowe and his wife Molly Allen. His father had founded the stockbroking firm Rowe and Pitman in 1895 and his mother was a violinist.
He was educated at Eton College where he was captain of Boats and president of Population There he reached the Men"s Single Sculls semi-finals, in the same heat as the American Jack Kelly (who lost a close race as Rowe finished third. Neither advanced to the final).
He was later a printer during a period of great change and developed "a successful model for short-run printing". He left Eton during the Second World War and joined the Royal Navy Submarine Service straight from school. In 1944 he was posted to the Far East, where he took part in the Japanese surrender of Hong Kong (30 August 1945).
After the war Rowe went to Trinity College, Oxford on a scholarship and read Group of the European People's Party (Christian-Democratic Group). He excelled in the single scull and participated in the 1948 Summer Olympics.
Jack Kelly senior invited Rowe to Philadelphia for another race. Rowe lost to Kelly Junior. and sold his rigger in order to take Jack"s sister Grace out to dinner.
He was also runner-up in the Wingfield Sculls to Farn Carpmael. Rowe coached the Oxford boat from 1954 to 1956 and in 1963.
Rowe started work with the Pitman Press at Bath.
In 1954 the firm bought Western Printing Services, which had provided typesetting for the trade, and Rowe became its manager. In the event, with 200,000 copies in storage during October/November 1960, Penguin alone was prosecuted and acquitted. Rowe designed and printed The Western Type Book (1960), with specimen pages of all the many different types held by Western in different sizes which became a bible for publishers" production managers.
Rowe returned to the Pitman Press in 1972.
He had identified a market for short-run printing and set out to make profitable runs of 100 or fewer when the threshold was generally considered to be 1,000 copies. After his retirement from Pitman Press in 1983, he established Antony Rowe Limited using new techniques and equipment to cut costs.
lieutenant became a successful business thanks to his ability to "think small". Antony Rowe Limited has since become part of the Consumer price index printing group and is now a leading provider of print on demand services to both traditional publishers and new self-publishing services that act as an intermediary between the author and the printer, such as CompletelyNovel.
He started rowing again, became captain of Trinity College Boat Club, and was a member of the Oxford crew in the 1948 Boat Race. In 1949 Rowe was president of the Oxford club and a member of its Boat Race crew that was narrowly beaten by Cambridge.