John Howard Whitehouse

Who was John Howard Whitehouse?

John Howard Whitehouse was the founder and first Warden of Bembridge School on the Isle of Wight and the second son of George Whitehouse. A Quaker, George Whitehouse was an uncompromising Gladstonian Liberal whose strong views on issues such as Irish Home Rule and opposition to the politics of Liberal Unionist, later Conservative, leader Joseph Chamberlain were to shape his son's political views. Whitehouse, throughout his career in politics and later at Bembridge, was an intense believer in the right of the individual to shape his own life and a bitter opponent of any form of bureaucratic control.

He attended the Midland Institute and Mason's College, Birmingham, specialising at the former in literature, history and political economy. It was here that he first read the works of John Ruskin, of whom he became a lifelong disciple.

In 1894, Whitehouse joined the firm of Cadbury as a clerk. Living in Bournville, the model village, in 1899 he founded and managed a large youth club. In 1901 he began a campaign to establish a national memorial to Ruskin in the village. Ruskin Hall, now the Bournville Centre for Visual Arts, comprised a library, museum and lecture hall. In the early twentieth century he acted as treasurer to Birmingham Technical Education Committee.