William Howitt (18 December 1792 – 3 March 1879), was a prolific English writer on history and other subjects. Howitt Primary Community School in Heanor, Derbyshire, is named after him and his wife.
In England
Howitt was born in Heanor, Derbyshire. His parents were Quakers, and he was educated at the Friends public school at Ackworth, Yorkshire. His younger brothers were Richard and Godfrey whom he helped tutor. In 1814, William Howitt published a poem on the Influence of Nature and Poetry on National Spirit. In 1821, he married Mary Botham, who, like himself, was a Quaker and a poet. William and Mary Howitt collaborated throughout a long literary career; the first of their joint productions was The Forest Minstrels and other Poems (1821).
In 1831, William Howitt produced a work that naturally resulted from his habits of observation and his genuine love of nature. It was a history of the changes in the face of the outside world in the different months of the year, and was entitled The Book of the Seasons, or the Calendar of Nature (1831). His Popular History of Priestcraft (1833) won him the favour of active Liberals and the office of alderman in Nottingham, where the Howitts had made their home.
They moved to Esher in 1837 and became friends with Elizabeth Gaskell and her husband. In 1838, the publication of his Colonization and Christianity, which was later quoted approvingly by Karl Marx in Capital, Volume I, marked a significant moment. In 1840, they went to Heidelberg, primarily for the education of their children, and remained in Germany for two years. In 1841, William Howitt, using the pseudonym Dr Cornelius, produced The Student Life of Germany, the first of a series of works on German social life and institutions. Mary Howitt devoted herself to Scandinavian literature, and between 1842 and 1863 she translated the novels of Frederika Bremer and many of the stories of Hans Christian Andersen.
