HOWITT, William (1795-1879), a popular writer and poet, was born in 1795 at Heanor, Derbyshire, where the Howitts had long been settled. His mother and father being members of the Society of Friends, William was brought up, with his brothers, in the faith of that sect, and educated at the local schools of the society. What he thus learned was supplemented by studies in natural science and modern literature and languages; and his leisure, spent in the woods and by the brook, fostered that love of nature which brightened every page he wrote and won his readers’ sympathy. A poem, published in 1814, on the Influence of Nature and Poetry on National Spirit, was, so far as we know, his first printed work. He married in 1823 a Quaker lady, Mary Botham of Uttoxeter, who as poetess and prose-writer occupies a place in literature no less distinguished than her husband’s. The first joint book appeared in the year of their marriage under the title, The Forest Minstrel, and other Poems. After a pedestrian excursion to Scotland, they took up their residence at Nottingham, Howitt engaging in the business of an apothecary. In 1824 he printed A Poet's Thoughts at the Interment of Lord Byron. We now find that both he and his wife had become known by their contributions, chiefly in rustic verse, to The Literary Souvenir, The Amulet, and other serial volumes of the day; these were collectively issued with additions in 1827 ⅛α The Desolation of A⅛κm (founded on the plague), The Emigrant, and other Poems. In 1831 Howitt produced a work of the class specially his own, The Book of the Seasons, or the Calendar of Nature, in which he drew a picture, from his own observations, of the appearances of mother earth in the garden, in the field, and by the stream during each of the twelve ...months. Of quite a different character was A Popular History of Priestcraft (1833), which ran through several editions, and gained him the favour of the active Liberals of his time, and the office of aiderman of Nottingham. It was followed, in 1835, by a cognate work in 2 vols., entitled, Pantika, or Traditions of the most Ancient T.imes. Having removed in 1837 to Esher, to be near the literary circles of the metropolis, Howitt there wrote in succession The Rural Life of England, 2 vols., 1838; Colonization and Christianity, 1838; The Boy's Country Book, 1839; and the first series (afterwards extended) of Visits to Remarkable Places, Old Halls, Battlefields, and Scenes illustrative of striking passages in English History and Poetry, 1840-42, in which he recorded impressions derived on the spot, and pictured each place with its inhabitants—freed, as he says, from the heaviness of the antiquarian rubbish piled upon them. Visiting Heidelberg in 1840, primarily for the education of their children, the Howitts remained in Germany two years, studying their neighbours, and busying their pens in descriptions of their new surroundings. In 1841 Howitt produced The Student Life of Germany, under the pseudonym of “Dr Cornelius,” including translations of some of the most popular German songs. The next year he published The Rural and Domestic Life of Germany, with characteristic Sketches of its Cities and Scenery ; in the year following a translation of Chamisso’s Wonderful History of Peter Schlemihl ; and in 1844 The Life of Jack of the Mill, a version of Holthaus’s Wanderings of a Journeyman Tailor, and German Experiences, addressed to the English, a satire on the social life of Germany. In 1845 appeared Life in Dalecarlia, translated from the Swedish of Miss Bremer, The Renounced Treasure, and Johnny Darbyshire. The Aristocracy of England, a History of the English People, a political sketch, appeared in 1846, at the beginning of which year Howitt became connected with the management and proprietorship of The People's Journal, a weekly paper. A disagreement leading to his withdrawal he started in 1847 a rival called Hoιvitt's Journal, but this was continued through three or four volumes only, though The Peoples Journal was merged in it. In 1847 Howitt had translated Ennemoser’s History of Magic, and written an original work entitled Homes and Haunts of the most eminent British Poets, 2 vols., which was succeeded by The Hall and the Hamlet, or Scenes and Characters of Country Life, and very speedily by Stories of English and Foreign Life (Bohn’s Illustrated Library), in which Mrs Howitt assisted. Then appeared The Year-Book of the Country, or the Field, the Forest, and the Fireside, and in 1851 a three-volume novel called Madam Dorrington of the Dene.
Under the associated names of husband and wife an interesting work was brought out in 1852, The Literature and Romance of Northern Europe: constituting a complete History of the Literature of Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Iceland, in 2 vols. In June of that year Howitt, with two sons and some friends, set sail for Australia, where he spent two of the most trying years of his life, working in the gold diggings, and visiting Melbourne, Sydney, and other towns. Some account of the novel situations in which he was himself placed is given in A Boy's Adventures in the Wilds of Australia (1854). Shortly afterwards he returned to the suburbs of London, on this occasion to Highgate, and narrated more elaborately his experiences in Land, Labour, and Gold; or Two Years in Victoria, with Visits to Sydney and Van Diemen's Land, 2 vols., 1855, a work which speedily became popular, the condition of the Australian colonies being then almost totally unknown in England. A further account of Australian life was given in 1857 in Tallangetta, the Squatter's Home, 3 vols. The year before Howitt had commenced The Illustrated History of England for Messrs Cassell, the sixth and last volume of which appeared in 1861. While this work was in progress he wrote in 1859 A Country Book of Amusements, and, i∏ connexion with Mrs Hall and others, The Boy's Birthday Book, and in 1860 The Man of the People, 3 vols. From 1861 to 1864 Mr and Mrs Howitt were occupied on The Ruined Abbeys and Castles of Great Britain, issuing, before its completion, The Wye, its Ruined Abbeys and Castles (1863); and the same year Howitt printed a series of Letters on Transportation, and the Cruelties Practised under the Game Laws, and a work of great research, The History of the Supernatural in all Ages and Nations, and in all Churches, Christian and Pagan, demonstrating a Universal Faith, 2 vols. To a man with the mental development of Howitt the miraculous became at all times an absorbing speculation; and he adds to these pages “his own conclusions from a practical examination of the higher phenomena through a course of seven years.” “If,” he reasons, “you crush the supernatural you must crush the universe.” Other works from Howitt’s prolific pen were Sargent's Peculiar (1864); The History of Discovery in Australia, <fcc., 2 vols., 1865; The Ruined Abbeys of the Border (1865), and of Yorkshire (1865), jointly with his wife; Woodburn Grange, a story of English country life, 3 vols., 1867; The Northern Heights of London, an antiquarian and topographical description of Hampstead, Highgate, &c., 1869; The Mad War-Planet, and other Poems, 1871; The Religion of Rome, 1873. Suffering from bronchitis, Howitt had now made Rome his winter residence, passing the summer in Tyrol. He died at Rome on the 3χl of March 1879.
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