George Owen Howell, 1851–1920
George Owen Howell, schoolmaster, poet, punster, and naturalist, was born at Tenby, Pembrokeshire, Wales, May 6th, 1851. He some twelve age when he left Wales with his parents to reside in Gravesend, in this country. At Gravesend he stayed until 1873, that year coming to Plumstead to reside. He has since the year named been attached to the scholastic profession. My first meeting with Mr. Howell was while I resided on Plumstead Common, Mr. Howell being then the head teacher of the Slade School. I have a vivid memory of our poet’s courtesy, and some acts of kindness to myself on the occasion referred to, which I bear willing testimony to. Mr. Howell is now the head teacher of the Vicarage road Board School, such school being the largest in the neighbourhood. The subject of this paper has contributed naturalistic articles to “Young England,” and has given Lectures in public. As I have now shown, he is the “Geo.” of this journal. He also contributes to a Tenby paper, and did in the past send poems to a Gravesend journal. I have that herein stated that I am personally acquainted with Mr. Howell, and with the exception of some “little weakness,” more of the head than the heart, our poet is a
“Jolly good fellow!”
He has a tasteful and a comfortable home, where his efforts to welcome a friend, are ably seconded by his charming and very amiable wife. His father still resides in Gravesend, and I am sure it must be pleasing to the elder Mr. Howell to know that his son is making such advance in his profession, and is the master of so many talents.
Thus wrote Charles P. O’Conor, Howell’s fellow contributor to the newspaper, in a rather prolix encomium of his friend’s talents, in the Greenwich and Deptford Chronicle, 7th September 1883. Howell was, according to this account, not interested in writing serious poetry, being given more to puns and the coining of witty epigrams – “in the gloaming, when he is in that comfortable and tasteful home of his at Shooter’s hill, fashioning faces in the fire, his thoughts turn to how he may twist the Queen’s English into a weapon to have a quiet laugh at a friend, or sting a fancied opponent”.
Howell’s father John was a tailor; both he and his wife Jane were natives of Pembrokeshire. At the time of the 1871 census George was not at the family home in Wrotham Road, Gravesend, but was a “Student in training college”, residing (along with other students, including several other young Welshmen) in Borough Road, Southwark. He married Emma Hadler in the Woolwich district towards the end of 1873, and by 1881 they had settled at 4 Paget Terrace, Plumstead. His occupation was given as Elementary school master. Subsequent censuses show him only as “School master” but by 1911 he was a Head teacher.
Although unsigned, the column in the Greenwich and Deptford Chronicle headed “Wise and Otherwise” (typical content: “When does an artist appear most thoroughly miserable? – When he draws a long face”) meets the description given by O’Conor of Howell’s work. On that basis he might also have been responsible for a similar column in the 1890s in the Gravesend Reporter, headed “Bits of Fun” (typical content: “Doing light work – Cleaning the lamps”, “The sweetest of girls who will wait for you is worth her wait in gold”). More notable, however, was his interest in antiquarian matters, and his soliciting of suitable content from readers of the Gravesend Reporter for inclusion in his “Kentish Note Book”.
The following notice appeared in that newspaper on Saturday, 3rd November 1888:
THE KENTISH NOTE BOOK:
OR NOTES, QUERIES AND REPLIES ON SUBJECTS CONNECTED WITH THE COUNTY OF KENT.
Contributions in Notes, Queries, or Replies are solicited for this column. Communications (accompanied by real names and addresses, not necessarily for publication) should be addressed to “G.O.H. care of the Editor of the Gravesend and Dartford Reporter, Edwin-Street, Gravesend,”)
Below this appeared Notes on ORIGIN OF THE NAME “SHOOTER’S HILL”, SHOOTER’S HILL FOOTPADS and A TERRIBLE AFFAIR AT TILBURY FORT (concerning a serious outbreak of violence at a Kent-Essex cricket match in 1776). These were followed by Queries from “NUMMUS” concerning various coin-like pieces, possibly from the Isle of Sheppey.
This became a regular feature of the newspaper, and by the end of 1889 the content was being collected into twice yearly parts, published by Smither Bros. of Gravesend. The first of these was advertised in the Gravesend Reporter for 7th December 1889:
NOW READY,
“The Kentish Note Book”
(PART 1),
REPRINTED from this paper with considerable additions, and published half-yearly, in July and January.
Subscriptions: 5s. per annum, payable in advance.
By the time Part 3 arrived in October 1890, the publication had attracted a number of favourable reviews which could be quoted in the advertisements:
“One of the best works of its kind that has yet been given to us by the Press”—Kentish Independent.
“Few antiquarian publications with which we are acquainted are more generally interesting or better conducted.”— Weekly Mail.
“We trust that it will meet with the success it merits from men of Kent and Kentish men.” — South Eastern Herald.
“The pages of this unique work teem with curious facts…. The subscription is remarkably low.”— Rochester and Chatham Times.
Subsequently, the individual parts were compiled into bound volumes, Volume 1 being published in 1891 and Volume 2 in 1894. The contents were wide-ranging, with a typical page from the index containing entries for “Poets, Kentish”, “Postal Service in Kent, the”, “Presentiment of Death”, “Pudding Pies”, “Quintain in Kent, the”, “Ramsgate :—Christmas Custom”, “Recollections of General Gordon”, “Remarkable Funeral at Wye”, and “Rhymes, Proverbs, and Sayings” – the latter including examples such as “In the Hundred of Hoo, there is dirt enoo!”, “Pudding Pies always at Easter-tide”, “Ramsgate Capons”, “Broadstairs Scrubs”, “Margate Kings”, “Sheppy Grass none can surpass”, “Sutton for Mutton, Kirby for Beef”, and “Jesus Christ never was but once at Hever”.
The two bound volumes include notes on Hoodening, and various Christmas carols which contributors had heard being sung locally – versions of ‘As I sat on a sunny bank’, ‘The Seven Joys’, ‘The Holly and the Ivy’, and ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’. There are various other songs and ballads, but generally reprinted from sources such as The Kentish Gazette, or from printed ballad sheets, not taken from oral tradition. Volume 2 contains ‘Ye Ballade’, which has all the hallmarks of verses from a printed rather than oral source, but which its contributor claims to be “an old Kentish Ballad which has “been handed down from father to son,” for a period extending over 150 years”, and which he has heard sung at harvest homes.
Although the newspaper column appears to have ended after 1894, Howell’s antiquarian interests continued. He contributed an article on Kentish proverbs to the first issue of The Kent Magazine in 18961, and in May 1898 presented a paper on “Kentish Folk and their Sayings” at a meeting of the Association of Men of Kent and Kentish Men.2 He “gave an interesting lecture on “Marbles, Tops, Jacks and Buttons,” to the Dartford Antiquarian Society” in December 19123, while the Woolwich Gazette for 23rd September 1913 reported that
The current number of the “Gravesend Magazine” concludes a capital and chatty series of papers by Mr. George O. Howell, of Plumstead, entitled, “A Walk from Gravesend to Cobham and thence to Strood.”
He had been a founder member of the Woolwich Antiquarian Society in 1895, and was clearly still involved in March 1914 when
Under the auspices of the Woolwich Antiquarian Society, Mr George O. Howell delivered a lantern lecture at the Old Town Hall […] on “Street Games: their Significance and Sequence: a Study in Juvenile Folk-lore.”4
He was one of two members of the Woolwich Antiquarian Society on whom the Dartford District Antiquarian Society “conferred honorary distinction” in February 1911, in his case “for work in Kentish folklore”.5
Despite what Charles O’Conor had written in 1883, Howell did turn his hand to the writing of poetry. His ‘Songs of Hope and Sunshine’ was published in 1901 and received good notices in the local press, the Folkestone Chronicle for 14th December 1901 saying that the author “has given in an elegantly produced volume many pieces of real merit, notable for bright ideas, polished diction, and an absence of any straining after effect”.
Howell’s wife died in December 1914. He retired from the Vicarage Road School in July 1916, after 43 years’ service (he had started work there in January 1883, and had been the head teacher for 37 years). He subsequently left 210 Eglinton Road, Plumstead, where he and his wife had lived since at least 1896, and returned to his home town of Tenby. There he died and was buried in 1920, at the age of 69.