John Howard was a British

British people

The British are citizens of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, any of the Channel Islands, or of any of the British overseas territories, and their descendants...

 schoolmaster

Schoolmaster

A schoolmaster, or simply master, once referred to a male school teacher. This usage survives in British public schools, but is generally obsolete elsewhere.The teacher in charge of a school is the headmaster...

 and poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

 who as a mathematician

Mathematician

A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....

 worked on the geometry

Geometry

Geometry arose as the field of knowledge dealing with spatial relationships. Geometry was one of the two fields of pre-modern mathematics, the other being the study of numbers ....

 of the sphere

Sphere

A sphere is a perfectly round geometrical object in three-dimensional space, such as the shape of a round ball. Like a circle in two dimensions, a perfect sphere is completely symmetrical around its center, with all points on the surface lying the same distance r from the center point...

.

Biography

Howard was born in the Fort George

Fort George, Highland

Fort George , is a large 18th century fortress near Ardersier, to the north-east of Inverness in the Highland council area of Scotland. It was built to pacify the Scottish Highlands in the aftermath of the Jacobite rising of 1745, replacing an earlier Fort George built with the same aim after the...

 garrison

Garrison

Garrison is the collective term for a body of troops stationed in a particular location, originally to guard it, but now often simply using it as a home base....

, near Inverness

Inverness

Inverness is a city in the Scottish Highlands. It is the administrative centre for the Highland council area, and is regarded as the capital of the Highlands of Scotland...

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

Private (rank)

A Private is a soldier of the lowest military rank .In modern military parlance, 'Private' is shortened to 'Pte' in the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth countries and to 'Pvt.' in the United States.Notably both Sir Fitzroy MacLean and Enoch Powell are examples of, rare, rapid career...

 in the British Army

British Army

The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...

, and he was brought up by relations in Carlisle. After being apprenticed

Apprenticeship

Apprenticeship is a system of training a new generation of practitioners of a skill. Apprentices or protégés build their careers from apprenticeships...

 to an uncle as a cork-cutter at the age of thirteen, he worked as a sailor

Sailor

A sailor, mariner, or seaman is a person who navigates water-borne vessels or assists in their operation, maintenance, or service. The term can apply to professional mariners, military personnel, and recreational sailors as well as a plethora of other uses...

, carpenter

Carpentry

A carpenter is a skilled craftsperson who works with timber to construct, install and maintain buildings, furniture, and other objects. The work, known as carpentry, may involve manual labor and work outdoors....

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

Patronage

Patronage is the support, encouragement, privilege, or financial aid that an organization or individual bestows to another. In the history of art, arts patronage refers to the support that kings or popes have provided to musicians, painters, and sculptors...

 of Edmund Law

Edmund Law

Edmund Law was a priest in the Church of England. He served as Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge, as Knightbridge Professor of Philosophy in the University of Cambridge from 1764 to 1769, and as bishop of Carlisle from 1768 to 1787....

, Bishop of Carlisle

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...

, he was appointed master

Head teacher

A head teacher or school principal is the most senior teacher, leader and manager of a school....

 at the Carlisle Grammar School. A love affair forced him to abandon a plan to become a priest

Priest

A priest is a person authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities...

 of the Church of England

Church of England

The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...

, and instead when the bishop's son John Law

John Law (bishop)

John Law DD was an English mathematician and clergyman who began his career as a Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge, and went on to become chaplain to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and Church of Ireland bishop of Clonfert and Kilmacduagh , Killala and Achonry , and finally of Elphin .He was a...

 was appointed bishop of Clonfert

Bishop of Clonfert and Kilmacduagh

The Bishop of Clonfert and Kilmacduagh was the Ordinary of the Church of Ireland diocese of Clonfert and Kilmacduagh, comprising the southern part of County Galway and a small area of County Roscommon, Ireland.-History:...

 in 1782 Howard became his steward

Steward (office)

A steward is an official who is appointed by the legal ruling monarch to represent him or her in a country, and may have a mandate to govern it in his or her name; in the latter case, it roughly corresponds with the position of governor or deputy...

. In 1786, Howard lost his job and had to return to Carlisle after "an unfortunate marriage". 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

Charles Hutton

Charles Hutton was an English mathematician.Hutton was born at Newcastle-on-Tyne. He was educated in a school at Jesmond, kept by Mr Ivison, a clergyman of the Church of England...

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.