This study of the Howard family of Tottenham and Ackworth is an illuminating perspective on how particular religious convictions, once adopted by some family members, can spread throughout, and bind, the kinship group. The Howards were longstanding Quakers and were at the leading edge of science in their day. Luke Howard was the first to classify clouds and his nomenclature remains with us. His son, John Eliot Howard, greatly advanced the pharmaceutical processes that made quinine widely available for medical use. The narrative, grounded in extensive research, focuses on key members of the family as they made their transition from Quaker commitment in the eighteenth century to the Brethren in the 1830s and 1840s. It sheds light on the development of evangelicalism in the nineteenth century, as refracted through the lens of this branch of the Howard family.
By Gerald T. West
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