Author: Howe, Alfred Edward
Biography:
HOWE, Alfred Edward (c. 1757-1833: ancestry.co.uk)
His birth, marriage, and death dates are unknown but the “Preface” to Original Poems records that in 1778 he served as Lieutenant in the Marines on the Seaford, a private sloop of war operating off St. Kitts. He then served on the Enterprise in the North Sea in 1781. In 1799 he was appointed steward on HMS Peteral, under the new command of Jane Austen’s brother Francis. He was discharged due to ill health at Port Mahon, Minorca. He may have been the Alfred Howe who married Sarah Shepherd on 28 Jan 1780 at Anthony, Cornwall; certainly he married close to this date. He had at least three children. A son is mentioned in the 1819 “Preface” and there were two daughters: Angelina (whose remarriage in 1847 listed him as a printer) and Eliza who was born in 1799 and baptised at St. Giles, Holborn, London, in 1802 but buried at Reading in 1814. In reduced circumstances, he found work as a journeyman printer at J. Heydon, Plymouth Dock. He stole type and other articles and on 31 Oct. 1800, Heydon gave a five guineas reward for his arrest, noting his sea service and previous post as steward on the Peteral. He does not appear to have been convicted of this offence. He may then have moved to Reading where Rational Amusement (1816) was published. By 1819 he was probably in London where Original Poems (1819) was printed at the Hope Press, White’s Row, Whitechapel Road. On 18 Dec. 1826, aged 70, he was convicted at Kingston upon Thames, Surrey, of stealing type from William Barnes, printer, of St. George’s, Southwark, and sentenced to eight months imprisonment. He appealed to the Home Secretary on the grounds of age and repentance, and promises of employment by an Islington bookseller and a City printer. He also stated that he had been married for forty-eight years and that this was his first offence. The petition was refused in May 1827 and his life thereafter is unknown. If he did go and work in Islington or the City, he may have been the Alfred Howe buried at St. Leonard’s, Foster Lane, City of London, on 5 Feb. 1833. (ancestry.co.uk 21 Jul. 2022; findmypast.co.uk 21 Jul. 2022; Sherborne Mercury 3 Nov. 1800) AA