Tribute to Charles Alexander (Alex) Cowan who died Thursday 30th March 2023 age 84

The Society are saddened to announce the death of Alex Cowan, Vice President, Honorary Archivist and the last of the original three local historians who set up the Society in 2000. He passed away peacefully at home with his beloved wife Pat on Thursday 30th March 2023.

Alex will be remembered by many local organisations, but our tribute is to his dedication to the recording of the history of Runcorn, his adopted town. Alex together with Bill Leathwood and Bert Starkey were the three Runcorn history stalwarts who founded the Society in 2000 and set out to record and archive the rich and varied heritage of Runcorn before it disappeared into the ether of time. For many years he was a Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Cheshire.

As the first Archivist of the Society, Alex served 22 years collecting and collating myriad individual snippets of history to form the extensive archive the Society has today. Unknown to many people Alex invested his own time into a second personal archive based on research articles, newspaper cuttings and records of individual events, buildings, industries associated with Runcorn. This fascinating and yet unseen archive he has generously donated to the Society.

Promoting and furthering the activities of the Society more widely was another aim that Alex had firmly on his agenda.He was our first representative in the Cheshire Local History Association, and went on to serve on their committee and take a turn as their Chairman too. We are continuing to build on his initiative with our display table of Runcorn history on show every year at Cheshire Local History Day. When the Halton Heritage Partnership was first formed, Alex was there as our representative from the beginning, and a decade later we now have a fast growing working relationship with its partners, contributing to many joint projects, and making some really good friends along the way.

Alex spent countless hours on research and encouraged others to do the same, if only to record the history of their families and the Runcorn industries with which they were associated. He turned his research into a permanent record with articles in the Society’s journals Runcova Volume 1 and 2, and the publishing of six local history books including the seminal record of all the Public Houses in Runcorn and the surrounding locality. Alex’s legacy lives on in:

1. Runcorn Town Hall (1990)
2. Crossing the Runcorn Gap (1990/92)
3. Vol. 1 - Runcorn Ferry & Hale Ford.
4. Vol. 2 - Early Bridge Proposals.
5. Vol. 3 - Runcorn Railway Bridge.
6. Runcorn Pubs (2011/12)
7. Vol. 1 – Last Orders "those that are no longer".
8. Vol. 2 – Time Gentleman Please "those that are with us now".

Alex was also master of event organising for key dates in town's local history, with the most notable being the 2015 celebrations for "1100 Years of History" marking Runcorn's foundation in 915 as a defensive burgh by Aethelflaed, Lady of the Mercians, and in 2018 he combined his love of railways and local history by working on the project with Network Rail to preserve and protect the Runcorn Railway Bridge Navigation Fog Bell, which was hung on the railway bridge over the river Mersey at Runcorn. The bell is now on permanent display at the Brindley Theatre, and was unveiled at a ceremony marking 150 years since the opening of the Railway Bridge in 1868.

Alex gave generously of his time not only to the Society but to all that asked for help, and his name often appears in the Acknowledgements Section of other Runcorn history books. This help was not restricted just to Runcorn folk, but around the world, as people researching their family in the UK from many corners of the world, found their way to his doorstep (email inbox!).

We are all the richer for knowing Alex, and having had the opportunity to know him as a friend and local historian, we will continue to cherish and grow the Archive he has left us.