Air Force Commander. Born in Moffat, the son of a school-master, Dowding was educated at Winchester College and the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich. He joined the Royal Flying Corps in its earliest days during the First World War, rising to the rank of Air Marshall in 1933. He spent an influential period as member for the Air Council for Supply, Research and Development (1930-36). As Commander in Chief of Fighter Command from 1936 he directed the defeat of the German Air Force in the Battle of Britain through a combination of effective preparation and sound tactics. He was responsible for the Dowding System which connected radar and observers to control centres and, in turn, to fighter aircraft and anti-aircraft artillery to provide an effective integrated defence system for Britain during World War II. Despite this success, Dowding was criticised for his tactics by his rivals, principally William Sholto Douglas and Trafford Leigh-Mallory, and was removed from his post in Fighter Command in October 1940. The main criticism was a lack of aggression, but Dowding was careful not to sacrifice the lives of his few pilots needlessly.
Curiously he was interested in spiritualism and claimed to have communicated with airmen who had been killed in action. Dowding was knighted in 1934 and elevated to a peerage, as Lord Dowding of Bentley Priory, in 1943. His ashes lie buried in Westminster Abbey.
