John Howard
John Howard
John Howard (1726–1790) was an English philanthropist remembered as a pioneer of prison reform. As a young man he was captured at sea by a French privateer and held as a prisoner in France, an experience that stayed with him. The turning point came in 1773, when, as High Sheriff of Bedfordshire, he personally inspected the county jail and found prisoners held in unhealthy conditions, some kept even after acquittal because they could not pay the jailer's fees. He went on to visit hundreds of prisons across Britain and Europe, and in 1777 published The State of the Prisons, which called for cleanliness, humane treatment and salaried jailers. His testimony helped bring about reform laws in Parliament. He died in 1790 at Kherson, in the Russian Empire, while studying the prevention of infectious disease. The Howard League for Penal Reform bears his name.
Latest UpdatesLIVE
Britain's Reformers and Philanthropists
John Howard exposed the harsh conditions in prisons and inspired lasting reform, and William Wilberforce led the parliamentary campaign that abolished the British slave trade in 1807. George Müller cared for more than ten thousand orphans in Bristol, Florence Nightingale transformed nursing and hospital sanitation, and William Booth founded The Salvation Army to serve the poor.
