Wilbert Francis Howard

Wilbert Francis Howard, FBA (30 December 1880 – 10 July 1952) was an English Methodist theologian, biblical scholar and clergyman.

Born in Gloucester on 30 December 1880,[1] Howard came from a Methodist family. He attended King Edward's School, Birmingham, and the University of Manchester.[2] He was a lay pastor in Tyneside for a year and then worked at Didsbury College as assistant to the president. In 1919, he was appointed New Testament tutor at Handsworth College, where he remained until retiring in 1951;[1] he was the college's principal from 1943 to 1951.[3] He was also president of the Methodist Conference in 1944 and, in a brief acting capacity, in 1946.[2]

Academically, he was interested in New Testament scholarship and edited the second volume of J. H. Moulton's Grammar of New Testament Greek.[2] He was the Dale Lecturer at Mansfield College, Oxford, in 1940,[3] and in 1946–47 was Select Preacher at the University of Cambridge.[2] He was awarded the Burkitt Medal for Biblical Studies in 1947[4] and was elected a fellow of the British Academy in 1949.[5] He died on 10 July 1952.[1]