After spending the summer at the Villa, Ackworth, Yorkshire for many years, the family left their home in Tottenham Green and moved there to live in 1828, but they always considered Tottenham as home.

Bruce Grove c1890 John Bonny © Bruce Castle Museum (Haringey Culture, Libraries and Learning)

4 Bruce Grove: Mariabella and Luke returned to Tottenham in 1837 to live at 4 Bruce Grove though they continued to visit Ackworth in the summer months.  His mother and sister, Elizabeth, had moved to Bruce Grove on leaving their house at Stamford Hill on the death of Robert Howard, Luke’s father, in 1812.  His mother died in 1816 and Elizabeth stayed on in the house until her death in 1869.

7 Bruce Grove: Luke Howard moved to 7 Bruce Grove to live with his son on Mariabella’s death on 23 February 1852 and remained there until his death on 21 March 1864.

Luke Howard died here in 1864 having lost all memory of his beloved clouds but still looking up at the sky.

According to the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society obituary notices 30 Nov 1863 – 30 Nov 1864: one who knew him well in the latter part of his life said:

“Those who lived with him will not soon forget his interest in the appearance of the sky. Whether at morning, noon, or night, he would go out to look around on the heavens, and notice the changes going on. His intelligent remarks and pictorial descriptions gave a character to the scene never before realised by some. A beautiful sunset was a real and intense delight to him; he would stand at the window, change his position, go out of doors, and watch it to the last lingering ray; and long after he ceased, from failing memory, to name the ‘cirrus,’ or ‘cumulus,’ he would derive a mental feast from the gaze, and seem to recognise old friends in their outlines.”