Death
His final journey took him into Eastern Europe, and into the Crimea, then Russia. Whilst at Kherson, in what is now Ukraine, Howard contracted typhus on a prison visit and died. He was buried on the shores of the Black Sea in a walled field at Dophinovka (Stepanovka), Ukraine. Despite requesting a quiet funeral without pomp and ceremony, the event was elaborate and attended by the Prince of Moldovia. When news of his death reached England, in February 1790, several John Howard halfpennies were struck, including one with the engraving "Go forth, Remember the Debtors in Gaol".
Howard became the first civilian to be honoured with a statue in St. Paul's Cathedral, London. A statue was also erected in Bedford, and a further one in Kherson. His bust features in the architecture of a number of Victorian prisons across the UK, such as at Shrewsbury.
Read more about this topic: John Howard (prison Reformer)
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“Go; and if that word have not quite killed thee,
Ease me with death by bidding me got too.
Oh, if it have, let my word work on me,
And a just office on a murderer do.
Except it be too late to kill me so,
Being double dead: going, and bidding go.”
—John Donne (1572–1631)
“For in the word death
There is nothing to grasp; nothing to catch or claim;
Nothing to adapt the skill of the heart to, skill
In surviving, for death it cannot survive,
Only resign the irrecoverable keys.
The wave falters and drowns. The coulter of joy
Breaks. The harrow of death
Depends. And there are thrown up waves.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“This morning men deliver wounds and death.
They will deliver death and wounds tomorrow.
And I doubt all. You. Or a violet.”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)