Scottish missionary and naturalist from Newbattle, near Edinburgh. He was trained at Western College, Bristol and ordained (1874) at St Andrew's Parish Church, Edinburgh. Rev. Cowan joined the London Missionary Society and was sent to Madagascar (1874-1881), where he taught Malagasy students at Fianarantsoa.He collected a wide range of natural history material including lemurs, birds, reptiles and molluscs that were sent to the zoology department of The Natural History Museum in London. Much of his original phanerogam and cryptogam material is also at BM. He resigned from the London Missionary Society following differences with fellow missionaries but continued to revisit Madagascar in connection with commercial interests.