necessities of the poor. He died in March, 1842, in his eighty-fifth year.—J. B—r.
HOWARD, John, the celebrated philanthropist, was born on 2nd September, 1726, either at Enfield, or at Clapton in the parish of Hackney, London. His father was an upholsterer and carpet warehouseman, who had retired from business with a considerable fortune. He was educated at two private schools, but his training at both seminaries seems, according to his own account, to have been very imperfect. Though he quitted them with but little Latin, and less Greek, he acquired in his early years some knowledge of living languages, as well as of natural science, geography, and medicine. At the age of fifteen or sixteen, young Howard was bound apprentice to an extensive wholesale grocer in Watling Street; but his father dying soon after, he bought up his indentures and set out on a tour through France and Italy, which lasted two years, and during which he acquired a thorough knowledge of the French language. On his return to England he took lodgings at Stoke Newington, and in 1752 married his landlady, a widow double his age, out of pure gratitude for the care with which she had nursed him through a long and dangerous illness. In spite of their disparity of years, Howard seems to have lived very happily with his wife; and on her death, which took place in November, 1755, he broke up his house and embarked for Lisbon, for the purpose of assisting to alleviate the sufferings caused by the great earthquake, that had recently laid the city in ruins. But the vessel in which he sailed was captured by a French privateer, and the crew and passengers were carried into Brest, where they were treated with extreme cruelty. Howard says many hundreds of them perished, and thirty-six were buried in a hole at Dinan in one day. The sufferings which he underwent and witnessed during his captivity appear to have made a deep and permanent impression upon his mind; and when he obtained his release, he brought the case of the prisoners of war under the notice of the English commissioners of sick and wounded seamen, and induced them to take measures for securing an exchange of prisoners. After his return to England he went to reside on the estate of Cardington, near Bedford, which had been left him by his father. Here he led a life of active, unpretending benevolence; superintending his farms, attending to the comforts of his tenants, erecting model cottages for the labourers, establishing schools for their children, and promoting by his charities and his active efforts the welfare of his poorer neighbours. In 1756 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, to the Transactions of which he contributed three papers. Two years later he contracted a second marriage with Henrietta, daughter of Edward Leeds, Esq., of Croxton, Cambridgeshire—an amiable, affectionate, and pious lady, in every way worthy of such a husband. For seven years Howard enjoyed uninterrupted domestic happiness; but in 1765 his wife died in giving birth to a son, the only issue of their marriage. This event was to him a source of the deepest affliction, but it probably contributed to extend his career of benevolence. His principal occupation during the four years which succeeded the death of his wife, was the education of his son, who, however, when he arrived at the years of manhood, behaved in a profligate manner, and ultimately became, through his own vicious conduct, an incurable lunatic. In consequence of the youth having turned out so ill, some have concluded that Howard's conduct as a parent must have been harsh and injudicious; but this charge has been completely refuted by the testimony of all who were witnesses to his affection for his son. In 1769 Mr. Howard undertook another continental tour, and visited France, Switzerland, Italy, Holland, and Germany. After his return home he busied himself with his books, his schools, and cottages. But in 1773 he was unexpectedly named sheriff of Bedford, and though he was a dissenter, and therefore liable to a penalty of £500 if he accepted the offer, he resolved to brave the obnoxious law. He was already aware of the existence of numerous abuses in the management of criminals, and as soon as he entered upon the duties of his office, he commenced a searching inquiry into the horrible corruptions of the English prison system. On examining the three prisons in Bedford, he found that they were not only miserably deficient in decent accommodation, in cleanliness, air, food, and water, but that the gaoler and his subordinates had no salary, and were entirely dependent on the fees they could wring from the wretched prisoners, who were, after their acquittal by the court, detained in the gaol, in some cases for years, until they paid the fees of gaol delivery. In order to put an end to these gross abuses, Mr. Howard proposed that a salary should be given to the gaoler in lieu of these fees; but the magistrates were startled at such an innovation, and refused to adopt it without a precedent. With a view to find the precedent required, Howard visited in the course of 1773 the public gaols in no less than twelve counties, all of which he found in a state disgraceful to a civilized country. He ultimately extended his investigation to all the prisons and houses of correction in England and Wales. In 1774 he laid before the house of commons the immense mass of minute and valuable information which he had accumulated, and received the thanks of the house for his philanthropic exertions. Shortly after two bills were brought into parliament, based on Howard's communications, for remedying the horrible abuses which he had brought to light, and providing for the proper accommodation and health of the prisoners. They were passed into law, and Howard immediately took energetic measures for carrying his reforms into effect, in spite of the opposition of the ignorant and rapacious fellows whose interests were affected by them. He next undertook a tour of inspection through Scotland and Ireland, for the purpose of comparing the prisons there with those of England and Wales. He found the system of prison management in Scotland much better, and in Ireland, as might have been expected, much worse than in England. Meanwhile an attempt had been made by his friends to return him to parliament as member for Bedford, which was nearly successful, but was defeated by the exertions of the ministers, to whom Howard's opinions respecting the contest with the American colonies had rendered him extremely distasteful. In the spring of 1775 he made the tour of France, the Austrian Netherlands, Holland, and Germany, for the purpose of inspecting the most celebrated prisons in these countries, and comparing their structure, condition, regulations, and results with those of our own. On his return to England with an immense collection of notes, and plans, and rules, he resolved, before patting his materials to press, to undertake another tour through England for the purpose of revising his former observations, and examining the operation of the new gaol act. When this survey was completed, after seven months of unremitting labour, he considered it necessary to revise and collate his continental experiences in a similar manner. On his return to England he published in 1777 his celebrated work entitled "The state of Prisons in England and Wales." He had spent nearly four years, and had travelled upwards of thirteen thousand miles in collecting the materials for this work, on which, besides, he expended a large sum of money. Between 1773 and 1783, indeed, he travelled on his philanthropic missions at home and abroad upwards of forty thousand miles. The disclosures made in his book excited great interest both in the legislature and the country, and at length it was resolved by the government to erect a new establishment on a large scale, for the purpose of subjecting the convicts to the discipline of hard work; and the indefatigable philanthropist once more returned to the continent for the purpose of collecting plans for the new building. On this occasion, his fame having gone before him, he was received with great distinction at Berlin and Vienna, and spent several hours with the prince of Prussia, and dined with Maria Theresa. In the spring of 1784 Mr. Howard, now about fifty-seven years of age, retired to his estate of Cardington, and resumed that life of simple and unpretending benevolence which his gigantic public labours had interrupted; but after nearly two years of repose, he resolved once more to quit his home on a new mission of philanthropy, for the purpose of inquiring into the causes and cure of the plague—a subject which had occupied much of his attention during his retirement at Cardington. Towards the close of 1785 he began his inspection of the principal hospitals and lazarettos of Europe, and proceeded through France (where, owing to the petty jealousy and resentment of the government, he incurred great danger), Genoa, Leghorn, Pisa, and Florence, to Rome, where he was cordially welcomed by Pope Pius VI. Thence he proceeded by Naples and Malta to Smyrna and Constantinople. During the course of this tour he underwent the most dreadful hardships, and was exposed to fearful perils in visiting infected caravanseries and pesthouses. The plague broke out on board the ship in which he returned to Europe, and he underwent the full rigours of the quarantine system in the famous lazaretto of Venice. But he seemed to bear a charmed life, and returned home in safety, although greatly
