John Morgan Howell (1855-1928) was a prominent figure in the public life of Cardiganshire in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Shortly after he was elected as county councillor in 1889, Howell married Ann Evans at the Tabernacle Calvinistic Methodist Church, Aberaeron.
Howell was associated with the radical wing of the Liberal Party in Cardiganshire and a keen supporter of policies such as land reform and disestablishment.
Having served as a county councillor for thirty years, the veteran Howell became embroiled in the infighting within the Liberal Association between supporters of Lloyd George and Asquith after the First World War.
He presided at a meeting addressed by Asquith at Aberystwyth in 1919 and was invited to stand as an Asquithian Liberal candidate in 1921 when Lloyd George engineered a peerage for Vaughan Davies to allow his supporter Ernest Evans to contest the seat.