Born May 28, 1774. Died September 28, 1816.
Mr. Howard was born at Darnell, in the parish of Sheffield, and was the third brother of the twelfth Duke of Norfolk. His name has become intimately connected with the manufacture of sugar, from the many improvements which he introduced into the old processes for the refinement of this most important article of commerce, and especially by his invention of the vacuum-pan.
It is related, on the authority of the late Mr. C. Few, that Mr. Howard's attention was drawn towards this subject by Mr. Charles Ellis, who, on the occasion of an immense quantity of West India sugar being in bond, and for which the revenue could find no market, recommended Howard, whose talents as a practical chemist Mr. Ellis was well acquainted with, to try and see if he could not relieve the Government warehouses, by converting the raw sugar into some kind of manure, and thus avoid the duty and render the article saleable. While experimenting for this purpose, Mr. Howard accidentally discovered his process of purifying sugar, for which, in conjunction with certain sugar refiners, he took out patents, and ultimately realized a considerable fortune.
Howard's vacuum-pan was patented in 1812; it depends for its action on the principle that liquids boil at temperatures dependent on the pressures they have to sustain. Thus water, under the ordinary pressure of the atmosphere (30 inches barometer), boils at 212° F., whereas in vacuo it will boil at about 80°; consequently a comparatively low temperature will effect the boiling of sugar-syrup in vacuo, evaporation will proceed far more safely than in the old process of heating the syrup in open pans, and the percentage of waste will be greatly reduced, rendering the manufacture highly profitable in a commercial point of view.
Mr. Howard died at the early age of forty-two, and was buried at St. Pancras, Middlesex. He left one son, and a daughter, Julia, who was married in the year 1829 to the Hon. Henry Stafford Jerningham, afterwards Lord Stafford.