John Howard (1753–1799), was a British

schoolmaster The word schoolmaster, or simply master, refers to a male school teacher. This usage survives in British independent schools, both secondary and preparatory, and a few Indian boarding schools (such as The Doon School) that were modelled aft ...

and

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who as a

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

worked on the

geometry Geometry (; ) is, with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. It is concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is c ...

of the

sphere A sphere () is a Geometry, geometrical object that is a solid geometry, three-dimensional analogue to a two-dimensional circle. A sphere is the Locus (mathematics), set of points that are all at the same distance from a given point in three ...

Biography

Howard was born in the

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garrison, near

Inverness Inverness (; from the gd, Inbhir Nis , meaning "Mouth of the River Ness"; sco, Innerness) is a city in the Scottish Highlands. It is the administrative centre for The Highland Council and is regarded as the capital of the Highlands. Histo ...

, in 1753. He was the son of Ralph Howard, a private in the

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, and he was brought up by relations in

Carlisle Carlisle ( , ; from xcb, Caer Luel) is a city that lies within the Northern English county of Cumbria, south of the Scottish border at the confluence of the rivers Eden, Caldew and Petteril. It is the administrative centre of the City ...

. After being apprenticed to an uncle as a cork-cutter at the age of thirteen, he worked as a

sailor A sailor, seaman, mariner, or seafarer is a person who works aboard a watercraft as part of its crew, and may work in any one of a number of different fields that are related to the operation and maintenance of a ship. The profession of the ...

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and flax-dresser. After developing interests in reading and mathematics, he opened a school near

. Under the patronage of Edmund Law,

Bishop of Carlisle The Bishop of Carlisle is the Ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Carlisle in the Province of York. The diocese covers the county of Cumbria except for Alston Moor and the former Sedbergh Rural District. The see is in the city o ...

, he was appointed master at the Carlisle Grammar School. A love affair forced him to abandon a plan to become a

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of the

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, and instead when the bishop's son John Law was appointed bishop of Clonfert in 1782 Howard became his

steward Steward may refer to: Positions or roles * Steward (office), a representative of a monarch * Steward (Methodism), a leader in a congregation and/or district * Steward, a person responsible for supplies of food to a college, club, or other ins ...

. In 1786, Howard lost his job and had to return to Carlisle after "an unfortunate marriage".R. E. Anderson, ‘Howard, John (1753–1799)’, rev. Ruth Wallis, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 200
accessed 11 May 2010
/ref> Loss of the stewardship forced him to resume teaching until 1794, when he moved to Newcastle-on-Tyne. There, he rented the school-house built by Dr Charles Hutton and gained a position as instructor. 1798 saw the appearance of his long-projected ''Treatise on Spherical Geometry'', after which his health rapidly declined. He died on 26 March 1799, aged 46, near Newcastle, and was buried in St John's churchyard. The epitaph on Howard's tombstone records many other ingenious mathematical and poetical pieces.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Howard, John Heads of schools in England Scottish mathematicians People from Inverness 1799 deaths 1753 births