Evelyn Owen

Evelyn Owen
Private Evelyn Owen in March 1941
Nickname(s)	Evo
Born	(1915-05-15)15 May 1915 Wollongong, Australia
Died	1 April 1949(1949-04-01) (aged 33) Wollongong, Australia
Allegiance	Australia
Service/branch	Australian Army
Years of service	1940–1941
Rank	Private
Other work	Inventor of firearms

Evelyn Ernest Owen (15 May 1915 – 1 April 1949) was an Australian who developed the Owen submachine gun which was used by the Australian Army in World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War.

Evelyn Owen was born on 15 May 1915 in Wollongong, New South Wales. He attended Wollongong High School but was not particularly academically inclined. Having an independent streak, he set up a ready-mixed mortar business with his brother; this venture subsequently failed.

Despite his lack of a technical background, Owen had a keen interest in firearms. This interest led him to develop a submachine gun, which he believed would be widely used in modern warfare.

By 1938, Owen had constructed a prototype which used .22 LR ammunition. The following year, he took the gun to an ordnance officer at Victoria Barracks in Sydney. Despite advising that the gun could be upgraded to a larger calibre, Owen was told that the Australian Army would not be interested. Submachine guns, such as the Thompson Machine Gun, were regarded as being unimportant, and furthermore, there was a perception in the army that such weapons were for gangsters rather than soldiers.

Owen, disappointed with the lack of interest in his firearm, enlisted in the Second Australian Imperial Force (AIF) in May 1940. He was assigned to the 2/17th Battalion. However, just before embarking for the Middle East with his unit, he managed to interest the manager of the Port Kembla plant of Lysaght's Newcastle Works, Vincent Wardell, in the gun. Australia had no experience in the development of mass-produced firearms and relied entirely on designs from the United Kingdom for the manufacture of its small arms. Wardell believed that the gun could be quickly manufactured in Australia in quantity and raised the matter with Lysaght's owner, Essington Lewis. Lewis arranged for Owen to meet with a representative of the army's Central Inventions Board, Captain C. M. Dyer.