William Howley was born on 12 February 1766, the first child of another William Howley, vicar of the parish of Bishop’s Sutton with Ropley in the County of Hampshire. His mother, Mary, was the eighth child of a prosperous wine merchant’s family, the Gauntletts, from Winchester.1 He had a younger sister, Mary, and the family lived in Ropley where his father served from 1757 until his death in 1796. The medieval Bishops of Winchester had had a residence there, and Winchester College still owned land. Howley was therefore given one of the first chances after any Founder’s Kin to be examined for a scholarship under rules drawn up by William of Wykeham, the fourteenth-century Bishop and Chancellor of England who founded the College. He was elected to a scholarship tenth in the order of merit in 1779 at the age of 12.2 The seventy scholars lived separately from the rest of the school’s pupils and followed classical and literary studies which had been designed by Wykeham to be the outstanding example of a Christian education which would inculcate ‘Godliness and Good Learning’.3 At least fifteen hours in the week was given to Latin composition and modern languages were not taught at all until 1821.4

Wykeham had also established New College, Oxford as a sister foundation – ‘Sainte Marie College of Wynchester in Oxenford’.5 Elections were made at the same time as the scholarships to Winchester, but a scholar could easily fail to get into New College whatever his ability or industry. The number of places available fluctuated every year so junior scholars were nominated for election two or three years before they were expected to move to Oxford. Howley was

elected after two years, in 1782, in sixth place.6 He entered in 1783, essentially as a probationer Fellow, although still called a scholar.7 Like Winchester, New College had seventy scholars, which was almost as many as the scholars of all the other colleges of the university combined. Letters survive between Howley and Thomas Burgess, a scholar of Winchester 1768-75, later Bishop of Salisbury. They give a rare glimpse of Howley’s interests at this time which unsurprisingly mostly concerned classical scholarship. Howley assisted Burgess in translating and revising Lessing’s comments on Aristotle for publication. He evidently learned German, Italian and Spanish well and also studied Hebrew.8 This is the earliest remaining evidence both of his command of languages and of his delicate health. He spoke of a nervous fever and severe headaches which he blamed on overwork both to Burgess and to others from time to time.9