a scholarship to the Oxford Diocesan Training College for Schoolmasters at Culham, about eight miles south of Oxford, from where he qualified with first-class honours. In October 1868, he enrolled at Trinity College, Dublin, graduating with a BA in June 1871 and being awarded an MA in the spring of 1878. At this time, students were not required to attend lectures at the college and needed only to sit the end of term examinations; such students became known as "steamboat men". Owen is said to have "carried off many prizes, more especially in divinity". Teaching career Owen's only teaching appointment was as headmaster of the National School at Llanllechid, near Bangor. Owen lived at Llanllechid from the mid-1850s until 1871; during this time, he first developed his interest in antiquarian research. Together with the local vicar, John Evans, he explored the local mountains and mapped a Roman encampment on Moel Faban, on the lower slopes of Foel-fras. He subsequently created a map of the whole parish which was published in 1866 in the North Wales Chronicle and later, in a more elaborate form, in Archaeologia Cambrensis. His explorations and maps were referred to in an article by Col. Augustus Lane Fox published in the 1870 Journal of the Ethnological Society. In 2005, researchers from the nearby Moelyci Environmental Centre made use of Owen's map during investigations into local hill-fort sites. Clerical career Owen was ordained as a deacon by the Bishop of Bangor in 1871, and in 1872 he was ordained as a priest. From 1871 until 1875, he was curate at St. Gwynnog's church, Llanwnnog, near Caersws. Also resident in Caersws at this time was the poet John Ceiriog Hughes, who had been stationmaster at Llanidloes between 1865 and 1870 before, in 1871, becoming station-master at Caersws and superintendent of the newly opened line from Caersws to the Van lead mines. Hughes was buried in St. Gwynnog graveyard in 1887. In 1875, Owen was appointed to the curacy of Holy Trinity Church, Oswestry, for a year before being appointed Diocesan Inspector of Schools for St. Asaph. While serving as an inspector, he lived in Llanfwrog near Ruthin, Denbighshire. From 1881 he was vicar of St. Michael's church at nearby Efenechtyd but continued to be an inspector, before giving up both roles in 1892 when he became vicar of Llanyblodwel, in Shropshire. On resigning his post as Diocesan Inspector, the