Then a great grief came to him. His wife died, and Howard was bowed down with sorrow.
But the distress brought with it a longing to be a comfort to others; and he set out for Lisbon, which had just been visited by the great earthquake of 1755, with the hope of assisting the homeless and suffering.
France and England were then at war, and on his way thither he was captured by a French vessel and thrown into prison. He was placed in a dark, damp, filthy dungeon, and was half starved. For two months he was kept a prisoner, and as soon as he was free he set about obtaining the release of his fellow captives.
Some years later he became a sheriff of Bedford, and began visiting the prisoners in the gaol where John Bunyan wrote the Pilgrim's Progress.
From the inquiries he made during the course of his visitations he was astonished to find that the gaolers received no salary, and that they lived on what they could make out of the prisoners. As a result it often happened that those who had been acquitted at their trial were kept in prison long afterwards, because they were unable to pay the fees which the gaoler demanded.
Horrified at the state in which he found the prison and at the abuses of justice that prevailed, John Howard determined to find out what was done in other parts of the kingdom, and visited a number of gaols throughout the country. And fearful places he found them to be! Boys who were taken to gaol for the first time were put with old and hardened criminals; the prisons were dirty and ill-smelling; the dungeons were dark and unhealthy; and, unless prisoners could afford to pay for comforts, they were obliged to sleep on cold bare floors, even delicate women not being exempted from such cruel treatment.
At Exeter he found two sailors in gaol, having been fined one shilling each for some trifling offence, and owing £1 15s. 8d. for fees to the gaolers and clerk of the peace. When he visited Cardiff he heard a man had just died in prison after having been there ten years for a debt of seven pounds. At Plymouth he found that three men had been shut up in a little dark room only five and a half feet high, so that they could neither breathe freely nor stand upright.
Hundreds of cases as bad or worse than these did he discover and bring before public notice.
He gave evidence before the House of Commons of what he had seen. Then Acts of Parliament were passed, providing that gaolers should be paid out of the rates, that prisoners who were found not guilty should be set at liberty at once, that the prisons should be kept clean and healthy, and the prisoners properly clothed and attended to.
Determined that these Acts should not remain a dead letter, he went about the country seeing that what Parliament required was actually carried out.