Editing John Howard (prison reformer) (section)

==Birth and early life==
[[File:HowardHouseClapton.png|thumb|A picture published in 1826, supposedly of the house where Howard was born.]]
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Howard was born in North London, either in Hackney or Enfield.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Memoirs of the Public and Private Life of John Howard, the Philanthropist; compiled from his own diary, etc. With a portrait ... |author=James Baldwin Brown (the Elder.) |author-link=James Baldwin Brown |publisher=T. & G. Underwood |date=1823 |edition=Second |pages=625–8}}</ref> His father, also John, was a wealthy [[upholsterer]] at [[Smithfield Market]] in the city. His mother Ann Pettitt,<ref>{{cite book |last1=West |first1=Tessa|title=The curious Mr. Howard : legendary prison reformer |date=2011 |publisher=Waterside Press |location=Hook, Hampshire |isbn=9781904380733}}</ref> or Cholmley,<ref name="ODNB">{{cite ODNB|id=13922|first=Rod|last=Morgan|title=Howard, John (1726?–1790)}}</ref> died when he was five years old, and, described as a "sickly child", he was sent to live at [[Cardington, Bedfordshire]], some fifty miles from London, where his father owned property. His father, a strict disciplinarian with strong religious beliefs, sent the young John to a school in [[Hertford]] run by [[John Worsley (scholar)|John Worsley]]. He went on from there to a [[List of dissenting academies#London area|dissenting academy]] run in London by [[John Eames]].<ref name="ODNB"/>

After school, John was apprenticed to a wholesale grocer to learn business methods, but he was unhappy. When his father died in 1742, he was left with a sizeable inheritance but no true vocation, a [[Calvinist]] faith and a quiet, serious disposition.{{cn|date=July 2024}}