In 1950, Sir Norman Brook attempted to have Gowing retained in the Cabinet Office as the permanent historian, but was stymied by the Treasury and the Civil Service Commission. In 1951, she was told that she had no chance of being appointed to the grade of Principal, which would have carried retirement benefits with it. She later said that her years at the Cabinet Office were the happiest of her life, but she began looking for another position. In 1955, she applied for a chair in economic history at Oxford, and for a position as a reader at LSE, but was unsuccessful. Sir Norman exploited various administrative loopholes to allow her to be retained at the Cabinet Office, and was prepared to make her the Cabinet Office Archivist, but he could not offer her a pension.