Roger Carmichael Robert Owen

Lieutenant Colonel Roger Carmichael Robert Owen
R.C.R. Owen in Khartoum, 1919, photographed by Bedřich Machulka
Governor of Mongalla
In office 1908–1918
Preceded by	Angus Cameron
Succeeded by	Cecil Stephen Northcote
Personal details
Born	1866 Writtle, Essex, England
Died	1 August 1941 Cairo, Egypt
Nationality	United Kingdom
Awards	Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George; Officer of the Order of the British Empire; Grand Officer of the Order of the Nile; Order of the Medjidie
Military service
Years of service	1884–1918
Unit	King's Shropshire Light Infantry; Oxfordshire Light Infantry; Egyptian Army

Lieutenant Colonel Roger Carmichael Robert Owen CMG OBE (1866–1941) was a British military officer who joined the Sudan service in 1903. He was Sudan Agent in Cairo from 1905 to 1908. Owen was then appointed Governor of Mongalla Province in South Sudan from 1908 to 1918.

Owen was born in 1866 in Writtle, Essex, England the son of the local vicar the Reverend Loftus Owen and his wife Emma (née Kenworthy). He was educated at Rossall School, where he was a noted athlete. In August 1884 he was commissioned in 3rd Battalion, The King's Shropshire Light Infantry. In 1888 he transferred to The Oxfordshire Light Infantry.

Owen was Superintendent of Army Signalling with the Manipur Expedition of 1891, and in the same year was also with the Wuntho Expedition in Upper Burma. He served in the First Mohmand Campaign between 1897 and 1898 and the Tirah Expedition which included operations in the Bara Valley and the Khyber Pass. He was severely wounded while fighting in the Kyhber Pass.

In 1902 Owen was appointed to the Egyptian Army. He held various posts in Egypt including being Director of the Intelligence Department of the Egyptian War Office. In that position, he was asked whether the Bedouin of Sinai would side with Britain or Turkey in the event of a war. His short-sighted view was "...It matters very little to us which side they take in such a case, as if such a war took place (and no one expects it even will). There would be no fighting in Sinai - it would be somewhere else". This was ironic in view of the later exploits of T. E. Lawrence in the Arab Revolt against the Turks. In 1906 Owen was a member of the Sinai Boundary Commission. He was appointed a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) that year.