Author: Howard, Gorges Edmond
Biography:
HOWARD, Gorges Edmond (1715-86: DIB)
The son of Francis Howard, an army captain, and his wife Elizabeth Jackson, he was born in Coleraine, County Londonderry. He was sent to Thomas Sheridan’s school in Grafton Street, Dublin, and briefly attended Trinity College Dublin but did not graduate. He was apprenticed to an attorney, David Nixon, but he disliked the work and left for a brief stint as a soldier. He returned to Dublin to work as an attorney and eventually built a successful career, both in private practice and working with successive administrations at Dublin Castle and lords lieutenant. On 24 Sept. 1743 he married Isabella Arabella Parry (d 1780) at St Mary’s Church, Dublin; they had two daughters. In 1746 he was appointed solicitor for the revenue of Ireland, a position for which he received a generous salary. He wrote legal treatises that were influential and remain a historical source for legal practice in Georgian Dublin but he claimed they lost money. His literary and dramatic works were also financially unsuccessful and he became the butt of satire both for his ponderous manner and his support of the English administration in Ireland. Robert Jephson’s (q.v.) popular verse satire Epistle to Gorges Edmond Howard (first published 1771) targeted both Howard and the bookseller George Faulkner; Howard replied in prose with his Candid Appeal to the Public on the Subject of a Late Epistle (1771) and later added Postscript to the Candid Appeal. He was interested in urban planning and took credit for various improvements to Dublin city streets and for building Parliament Street. He died at home in Dominick Street, Dublin, and the contents of his house, his library, and various parcels of land were auctioned after his death. His other literary works include A Collection of Apothegms and Maxims (1767), Almeyda; or, The Rival Kings: A Tragedy (1769), and The Female Gamesters (1778). (DIB 25 Jan. 2022; ODNB 25 Jan. 2022; ancestry.co.uk 25 Jan. 2022; WorldCat; Saunders’s Newsletter 30 Oct. 1786, 24 Jan. 1787)