William Howitt
| William Howitt | |
|---|---|
picture from BritishLibrary.co.uk
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| Born |
18 December 1792 Heanor in Derbyshire |
| Died |
3 March 1879 (aged 86) Rome |
| Education | Friends public school at Ackworth |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Spouse(s) | Mary Botham |
| Children | Anna Mary Howitt |
William Howitt (18 December 1792 – 3 March 1879), was a prolific English writer on history and other subjects. William and his wife Mary also owned a school still used today; Howitt Primary School in Heanor, Derbyshire.
Howitt was born at Heanor, Derbyshire. His parents were Quakers, and he was educated at the Friends public school at Ackworth, Yorkshire. His younger brothers were Richard and Godrey whom he helped tutor. In 1814 he published a poem on the Influence of Nature and Poetry on National Spirit. He married, in 1821, Mary Botham, who like himself was a Quaker and a poet. William and Mary Howitt collaborated throughout a long literary career, the first of their joint productions being The Forest Minstrels and other Poems (1821).
In 1831, William Howitt produced a work resulting naturally from his habits of observation and his genuine love of nature. It was a history of the changes in the face of the outside world in the different months of the year, and was entitled The Book of the Seasons, or the Calendar of Nature (1831). His Popular History of Priestcraft (1833) won him the favour of active Liberals and the office of alderman in Nottingham, where the Howitts had made their home.
They moved in 1837 to Esher, and became friends with Elizabeth Gaskell and her husband. 1838 saw publication of his Colonization and Christianity, which was later quoted approvingly by Karl Marx in Capital, Volume I. In 1840 they went to Heidelberg, primarily for the education of their children, remaining in Germany for two years. In 1841 William Howitt produced, under the pseudonym of Dr Cornelius, The Student Life of Germany, the first of a series of works on German social life and institutions. Mary Howitt devoted herself to Scandinavian literature, and between 1842 and 1863 she translated the novels of Frederika Bremer and many of the stories of Hans Christian Andersen. With her husband she wrote in 1852 The Literature and Romance of Northern Europe. In June of that year William Howitt, with two of his sons, set sail for Australia, where he spent two years in the goldfields. The results of his travels appeared in A Boy's Adventures in the Wilds of Australia (1854), Land, Labour and Gold; or, Two Years in Victoria (1855) and Tallangetta, the Squatter's Home (1857).
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