Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 28.djvu/134

  

HOWLETT, SAMUEL BURT (1794–1874), surveyor and inventor, only son of Samuel Howlett of Gracechurch Street, London, and grandson of John Howlett of the Hall, Pulham St. Mary the Virgin, Norfolk, was born on 10 July 1794. He entered the corps of Royal Military Surveyors and Draughtsmen as cadet on 20 Aug. 1808, and became a favourite pupil of, the mathematician [q. v.] Howlett at the age of fourteen drew the diagrams for the fourth edition of Bonnycastle's Euclid. On becoming a commissioned officer he surveyed single-handed parts of Berkshire and Wiltshire for the ordnance survey. The corps being reduced in 1817, after the peace, he was on half-pay until 1824, when he was appointed assistant, and in 1830 chief military surveyor and draughtsman to the board of ordnance. In 1826 he was an exhibitor at the Royal Academy, and in 1828 he published an ingenious treatise on perspective. As inspector of scientific instruments for the war department he was led to make improvements in the mountain barometer and in the stadiometer then used at the School of Musketry. He also invented an anemometer, and a method of construction, now widely adopted, for large drawing-boards, with compensations for moisture and temperature. Several papers written by him on these inventions and on cognate subjects were published in the 'Professional Papers of the Royal Engineers.'

From early manhood he spent much time in promoting church schools and in charitable work among the poor. He retired at the age of seventy-one, and died at Bromley in Kent on 24 Jan. 1874.

His elder son, the Rev. Samuel Howlett, B.A. Cambr. (d. 1861), was mathematical lecturer at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. His younger son, Richard Howlett, F.S.A., is one of the editors of the Rolls series of Chronicles.



HOWLEY, HENRY (1775?–1803), Irish insurgent, was a protestant, and worked as a carpenter in his native place, Roscrea, co. Tipperary. He took part in the rebellion of 1798 and in Robert Emmet's insurrection. While engaged in the latter plot he was the ostensible proprietor of the store in Thomas Street, and to him was assigned the task of bringing up the coaches by means of which Emmet designed to effect his entrance into Dublin Castle. While engaged, however, in carrying out this part of the programme, and as he was passing along Bridgefoot Street, Howley stopped to interfere in a common street brawl, which unfortunately ended by his shooting Colonel Lyde Brown. Compelled thereupon to consult his own safety, Howley left the coaches to their fate and fled. To this untoward accident Emmet chiefly ascribed the failure of his plot. Howley's hiding-place was subsequently betrayed by a fellow-workman, Anthony Finnerty, to Major Sirr. In the scuffle to arrest him Howley shot one of the major's men, and escaped into a hayloft in Pool Street, but was soon captured. He was condemned to death by special commission on 27 Sept. 1803, confessed to having killed Colonel Brown, and met his fate with fortitude.



HOWLEY, WILLIAM (1766–1848), archbishop of Canterbury, the only son of William Howley, vicar of Bishops Sutton and Ropley, Hampshire, was born at Ropley on 12 Feb. 1766. He was educated at Winchester, where he gained the prize for English verse in 1782 and 1783. On 11 Sept. 1783 he matriculated at Oxford as a scholar of New College (of which he afterwards became a fellow and tutor), and graduated B.A. 1787, M.A. 1791, B.D. and D.D. 1805. Howley was appointed tutor to the Prince of Orange, afterwards William II of Holland, during his residence at Oxford. In 1794 he was elected a fellow of Winchester College, and on 2 May 1804 was installed a canon of Christ Church, Oxford. In 1809 Howley was made regius professor of divinity at Oxford, an appointment which he resigned upon his elevation to the episcopal bench. He was instituted to the vicarage of Bishops Sutton on 8 Dec. 1796, to the vicarage of Andover on 22 Jan. 1802, and to the rectory of Bradford Peverell on 23 May 1811. He was admitted to the privy council on 5 Oct. 1813, and on the 10th of the same month was consecrated bishop of London at Lambeth Palace, in the presence of Queen Charlotte and two of the princesses. He took his seat in the House of Lords at the opening of parliament on 4 Nov. 1813 (Journals of the House of Lords, xlix. 666). In 1820 he supported the bill of pains and penalties against Queen Caroline from 'a moral, constitutional, and religious point of view' (Parliamentary Debates, new ser. iii. 1711), and is asserted to have laid it down with much emphasis 'that the king could do no wrong either morally or physically' (Times for 12 Feb. 1848). On the death of in July 1828 Howley was translated to the see of Canterbury, and on 