John Howe, 4th Baron Chedworth

Born 22 August 1754, he was son of Thomas Howe (died 1776), rector of Great Wishford and Kingston Deverill, Wiltshire.

Howe was educated first at Harrow School, where he gave early signs of what was to be a lifelong interest in the stage and the turf.

In 1781 he succeeded his uncle, Henry Howe, 3rd Baron Chedworth, in his title and estates, but he continued to live in comparative seclusion, and seldom visited his properties in Gloucestershire and Wiltshire.

Late in life he lived in the house at Great Yarmouth of his friend Thomas Penrice (1757–1816),[1] a musician and a collector of paintings, descended from a Worcestershire family.

Chedworth published two pamphlets: Two Actions between John Howe, Esq., and G. L. Dive, Esq., tried by a Special Jury before Lord Mansfield at the Assizes holden at Croydon, August 1781, 2nd edit., London, 1781; and A Charge delivered to the Grand Jury at the General Quarter Sessions of the Peace for the County of Suffolk, Ipswich [1793].