Author: Howell, Samuel
Biography:
HOWELL, Samuel (fl 1816-26)
Howell published two editions of The Wandering Minstrel in London, the first anonymously in 1820 and the second with his name, by subscription, in 1827. The contents are mainly loco-descriptive poems celebrating parts of Essex and what is now north London—specifically, around Walthamstow and Epping Forest. The fairly extensive subscription list includes local addresses (Chingford, Chingford Green, Chingford Hatch) but also many in London, including a Mr. A. H. Howell of Walworth. Samuel Howell was a schoolteacher but does not appear to have been a native of the area. In 1816 he was Master of the Waltham Academy on Sewardstone St., Waltham—a fine house still standing, now known as Essex House. He may be the Samuel Howell who married Ann Lake at St. Peter, Roydon, Essex, on 23 Jun. 1812. No baptismal records have been found for children or for Howell himself, nor any record of his later life. (ancestry.com 15 Dec. 2022; findmypast.com 15 Dec. 2022; William Winters, History of the Ancient Parish of Waltham Abbey [1888], 183)