Howes was born in
Oxford, and was educated at Oxford High School and
St John's College, where his love of music was developed under the tutelage of
Sir Hugh Allen. After the First World War, in which he was conscripted into the
Non-Combatant Corps, he was admitted to the
Royal College of Music, where, guided by
H. C. Colles, he specialised in musical criticism. His obituarist in
The Times considered that of Howes's 15 books, it was the 1966
The English Musical Renaissance that meant most to him. According to his fellow critic Martin Cooper, Howes's affinity with music in the "English Renaissance" tradition left him out of sympathy with the increasingly cosmopolitan outlook of those British composers who emerged only after the Second World War. Among Howes's other books were studies of
William Byrd,
Ralph Vaughan Williams and
William Walton. In addition to his writing, he was active in behind-the-scenes musical work, as president of the
Royal Musical Association (1947–58), chairman of the
Musicians' Benevolent Fund (1936–55); and member of music advisory panels for the
BBC, the
Arts Council and the
British Council. Howes married Barbara Tidd Pratt in 1928; the couple had a son and three daughters. He lived with his family at Newbridge Mill in
Standlake, Oxfordshire, and died at the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, at the age of 83. He was cremated at Oxford crematorium on 2 October 1974, and his ashes were interred at St Lawrence, Combe, Oxfordshire. ==Books by Howes==