HOWARD FAMILY

Identity Statement

Reference code(s)	: GB 0074 ACC/1270
Held at	: London Metropolitan Archives   Click here to find out how to view this collection at https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/lma ›
Full title	: HOWARD FAMILY
Date(s)	: 1786-1915
Level of description	: Collection
Extent	: 0.15 linear metres (233 documents).
Name of creator(s)	: Howard | family | chemists

Context

Administrative/Biographical history:

Robert Howard was a member of an old Quaker family who set up in business as a metal and tinplate worker in London in the mid-eighteenth century. His place of business was in Old Street. He associated with A Argand, the Swiss inventor of the standard oil lamp and his son Robert spent some time in Geneva working with Argand {ACC/1270/004}. Another son of Robert Howard, Luke, married Mariabella Eliot, daughter of a wealthy Quaker, eventually bringing to the Howards most of the Eliot property.

Luke Howard was a scientist of note, making a considerable reputation for himself in meteorology {ACC/1270/053, 058, 088, 093}. Goethe was so impressed by Howard's work that he composed a poem in his honour {ACC/1270/085, 086}. Luke Howard purchased the Villa Ackworth near Pontefract, Yorkshire as a place of retirement and both he, his wife and daughter Rachel, took much practical interest in the Quaker schools of the district. He had, before moving to Ackworth, lived for a time at Tottenham, and it was there at Bruce Grove that his son Robert lived after his marriage to Rachel Lloyd, daughter of Samuel and Rachel Lloyd of Birmingham. Howard likewise took a house in the Tottenham district, Lordship Lane, to live in with his wife Maria Crewdson, daughter of William Dilworth Crewdson of Kendal.

Luke Howard inherited through his wife the west country Eliot estate at Ashmore in Dorset {ACC/1270/062, 064, 068, 070}. Throughout the letters of Mariabella Howard, there are afforded glimpses of the controversy that plagued the Society of Friends during the 1810's and 1840's. The American Society of Friends had split over the pressing to its furthest limits of the doctrine of the "inward light" to the neglect of the Scriptures and this provoked a counter-movement in England, spearheaded by Isaac Crewdson's "Beacon of Light". Many Friends left the Society and joined more orthodox evangelical churches. Mariabella Howard was no exception, formally leaving the Society in 1810 {ACC/1270/051}, her son Robert having presumably done likewise {ACC/1270/671}.

Content

Scope and content/abstract:

Records of the Howard family, including family letters; memoirs of Luke Howard sent to Goethe; poem by Goethe about Luke Howard; accounts of events; notes on the weather; religious writings; pamphlets; obituaries; extracts of the diary of Rachel Lloyd; genealogical notes and family pedigree.

Access & Use

Language/scripts of material:
English

System of arrangement:

ACC/1270-1: Correspondence;
ACC/1270-2: Personal papers;
ACC/1270-3: Papers of Lloyd family;
ACC/1270-4: General papers.

Conditions governing access:

Available for general access.

Conditions governing reproduction:

Copyright to this collection rests with the depositor.

Finding aids:

Please see online catalogues at: http://search.lma.gov.uk/opac_lma/index.htm

Archival Information

Archival history:

Immediate source of acquisition:

Records deposited in January 1975.

Allied Materials

Related material:

This deposit of letters and papers relating to the Howard family is in addition to a more extensive one made some years earlier {see ACC/1017}. There is a full introduction to the catalogue of this earlier deposit which should be consulted.

Publication note:

Description Notes

Archivist's note:

Rules or conventions:
Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions:
Records prepared May to September 2011.