28 November 1772 – 21 March 1864.

Manufacturing chemist and amateur meteorologist. Namer of clouds.

Luke Howard was born, in London, on the 28th of November 1772, and later went on to attend a Quaker grammar school in Burford, Oxfordshire. Following on from his apprenticeship with a pharmacist in Stockport, Cheshire, once back in London, Howard began working for a druggist in Bishopsgate, before starting his own pharmacy in Fleet Street. In 1798, Howard went into partnership with William Allen, a fellow Quaker and pharmacy owner, to form the pharmaceutical company Allen and Howard. Howard oversaw the companies’ factory in Plaistow. When this partnership came to an end in 1807, Howard relocated his business, which would later become the industrial pharmaceutical company known as Howard and Sons, to Stratford, in East London. During this time, Howard moved with his family to Tottenham, and in addition later spent several years in Ackworth, Yorkshire. Howard became a Quaker minister in 1815, although he would later quit the society and was subsequentially baptised in to the Plymouth Brethren.

In addition to his work manufacturing chemicals for the pharmaceutical industry, Howard was a keen amateur meteorologist and enthusiastic about the broader sciences. An earlier interest in botany saw him present Account of a Microscopical Investigation of Several Species of Pollen to the Linnean Society in 1798, which was published in 1802; but his real passion lay in meteorology.

In 1803, Howard published his Essay on the Modification of Clouds, which he had previously presented to the Askesian Society, in which he named the three main categories of clouds, as well as several sub-categories, using a descriptive Latin nomenclature. A system which was later popularised, and we still use to this day.

Howard also contributed papers on other meteorological topics and was an early writer on climate studies, publishing the first book in English urban climatology: The Climate of London 1818-1820. His other published works include Seven Lectures in Meteorology, in 1837 and Barometrographia in 1847.

Luke Howard died in Tottenham, on the 21st of March 1864.