AustLit

Henry Howard was born into a relatively poor family and, as a boy, received only primary school education. He became a local preacher in the Methodist Church at the age of seventeen, and two years later funds were found to send him to Wesley College, Melbourne, to train for the ministry. After he was ordained he worked in Victorian circuits at Hotham, Merino, Toorak, Ballarat and Kew. In 1902 he was appointed to the large ministry of Pirie Street Methodist Church in Adelaide and the Adelaide Central Mission.

In 1921 he left for England, and was in charge of the Hampstead Wesleyan Church. He was 'a popular preacher of striking eloquence' (Fred Johns, Who's Who in the Commonwealth of Australasia, 1922, p.134), and visited America for lectures and occasional preaching. His final ministry was at the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York in 1926. Here he was highly regarded and his sermons were often printed in the New York press.

As well as his poem 'To the Blenchers', which was published by the State Recruiting Committee during World War I, he published The Sleepless Vigil of the Fleet (1918) and The Defeat of Fear and Other Studies (1931). He also wrote songs and was author of over fifteen works based on his sermons.

He was the father of Winifred Howard (qv).