1877 - He is born at Buckhurst Hill, Essex, on the edge of Epping Forest. At four years old the family, with his eight siblings, move to Hackney, London. His elementary education takes place at Morning Lane School in Hackney.

1893 - At age 16, he passes the Entrance Exam to the City and Guilds of London Institute, Finsbury Technical College and starts there in October of that year. Here he twice gains first place in all the College in Chemistry. After training at Finsbury he becomes Associate of the City & Guilds of London Institute.

1898-99 - At 21 years old he is working in Hayle, Cornwall with the extraction of Zinc White.

1900 - He becomes an Associate of the Institute of Chemistry; his final examination for this qualification is in Branch "B" Metallurgical Chemistry. In March of this year he is in Middlesborough, Yorkshire, involved with the unloading of a shipload of over 5000 tons of Brazilian manganese ore.

1901 - After working with Edward Riley & Co in their London Laboratory, he is posted by them to the Italian Island of Elba where he is their representative in the laboratory of the iron mines there.

1902-1931 - He is Manager of manganese ore mines in India. He himself writes, 'From 1902 to 1931 I was on manganese ore mines doing a good deal of analysis, except during the last years as I was then managing a fairly big concern.'

1902-1909 - At 25 years old in 1902 he becomes Manager & Analytical Chemist for Kiddle Reeve & Co at Kajli Dongri, Panch Mahals, Jhabua District, Madyha Pradesh. Here he builds a railway, extending the Bombay, Baroda and Central India Railway from Meghnagar to Kajli Dongri where he opens the mines.

1904 - He becomes a Fellow of the Royal Institute of Chemistry. And about this time at Kajli Dongri he discovers a new ore of manganese, a blue amphibole, which is named winchite after him by Sir Lewis Leigh Fermor, later the Director of the Geological Survey of India.

1909 - In this year, in his rough jungle laboratory, he is the first to analyse a sample of hollandite, which he discovered at Kajli Dongri. Sir Lewis Leigh Fermor names this new mineral after Sir Thomas Holland, the then Director of the Geological Survey of India.

1909 - Later this year he moves to be manager at the Shivrajpur Mines, owned by Killick Nixon & Co. His daughter Fairy said that Howard was one of only eight white men in his area of Shivrajpur, and that he became judge, doctor and oracle, the authority everyone turned to. He even did some minor medical procedures.

1911 - He meets his first wife Patricia Elizabeth (Patsey) Crolly on board ship whilst returning from Bombay to England. A shipboard romance! Patsey had been in Australia for about two years as companion and friend to Lady Zara Hore-Ruthven, Countess of Gowrie, and is on her way home from Australia, where it is said that she was at a banquet or dinner attended by Ernest Shackleton. (In 1909 Shackleton returned via Sydney from his Nimrod exhibition to the South Pole.) Later that year Howard and Patsey are married, and in subsequent years their three daughters, Elsie Elizabeth (Betty), Mary Kathleen (Moira) and Patricia Grace (Fairy), are born. The girls attend boarding school in England whilst their parents live in India, but most years Howard and Patsey return for a while to spend time with their daughters.
[ Moira married Harry Kingslsey Cockerill who worked for New Zealand Shipping Company from around 1920 to November 1941 when he was Chief Officer of the NOTTINGHAM which was lost with all hands. He had been on the NORFOLK when she too was torpedoed in June 1941, but survived. ]

1914-18 - The First World War - Howard does not serve in the British Armed Forces as his is a reserved occupation, manganese being a mineral of strategic importance, used in the iron and steel industry and of great importance in wartime.

1925-28 - Howard invents a system of variable gears for which he applies for patents in many countries: India, England, America, Spain, Germany, Belgium, France, Canada, Italy, Switzerland, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia. But the gearing system, intended for hoisting and hauling, doesn't seem to have been developed and put to practical use. It is also understood that he invented a type of ball bearing, but that someone else patented it before he could do so.

1928 - He buys 'Bracken,' Empress Avenue, West Mersea. He already owns 'Aclint' in Grove Avenue, West Mersea, which he later rents out to tenants. 'Bracken' is a bungalow. Howard builds extensions and a second storey on to it.

1931 - At the end of his stint in India the family moves into 'Bracken.'

1937 - His wife Patsey dies suddenly.

1939-1945 - The Second World War - he is now too old to be called up, but contributes to the local War effort, working with the Air Raid Precautions (ARP) organisation on the Island.

1939 - He takes a second wife, but this marriage lasts only a very short time.

1943 - His third marriage to Betty Christine Williams née Notton lasts until his death at 'Bracken' in 1964 at the age of 87. By this marriage he has three children, Pauline Katherine, Susan Doris and Richard Benjamin. Also a step daughter Christine Mary Williams, the daughter of Betty's first marriage. Betty is the recipient of a series of letters written by Howard from 1940 to 1943 before they were married. [The letters are being edited by Pauline. Extracts relating to WW2 are on this database].

In his retirement Howard is a keen bowler. In the beginning the Mersea Island Bowling Club is men only, and at first women are not allowed to play. This is a challenge to Betty, and it needs much persuasion to finally allow women players at the Club. She begins to play bowls in 1949. She is a Founder Member of the Mersea Island Ladies Bowling Club, and later of the Falcon Ladies Bowling Club and of the West Mersea Ladies Indoor and Outdoor Club. In 1965 she plays at Wimbledon in the National Rink Championships. In 1974 she becomes President of the County of Essex Bowling Association and plays for Essex County.

During her life on Mersea Island Betty is dedicated to working in the community, raising funds for many causes and charities. She throws herself more fully into this work after Howard's death in 1964. She is elected to the West Mersea Urban District Council, and then becomes Deputy Chairman of the Council. For about 30 years she is on The Mersea Island Trust Committee and chairman of two of their sub-committees. The Mersea Island Trust built the flats for the elderly at Ackhurst Court in Melrose Road, and in High Street North. She is also on the Help the Aged Committee.

In 1966 she starts, and is for 25 years trustee and chairman of, The Friends of Mersea, an organisation which helps those in need; the lonely, elderly and housebound residents of Mersea Island. In 1981 the organisation does 7000 miles - about 500 car journeys to help with shopping, and dental, doctors' & hospital appointments. Sometimes the journeys are long distance, to places like London. The service supplements the ordinary ambulance service, and is voluntary, covered by donations. Assistance is given in many other ways, helping people fill in official forms, helping to write letters or reading, and preparing Christmas parcels for the house-bound or elderly.

She is a Governor, and then Chairman of the Governors of two schools - the local West Mersea School and Monkwick School in Colchester which later became the Thomas Lord Audley School. She is Chairman of the Youth Education Committee and has to visit schools all over the relevant area of Essex. She is involved with the Further Education Committee - I think as Chairman.

For about 30 years she organises the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association on the Island, collecting for their fund-raising, and doing the same for the Princess Alexandra Rose Day, (Alexandra Nurses Association). She is president of the local Women's Institute for about three years. Passionate about the voluntary work she does, she is also a dedicated wife to Howard and a loving mother to her children.