The settlement at Port Clarence (named after the Duke of Clarence) was constructed under the supervision of William Fitzwilliam Owen, who had previously mapped most of the coasts of Africa and was a zealous anti-slaver.
He went on to the Cape of Good Hope, where he arrived in June 1823; he joined the expedition of HMS Leven and HMS Barracouta under William Fitzwilliam Owen, to Delagoa Bay.
Vice Admiral Owen was twice married: first in January 1818 to Martha Evans with whom he had two daughters (see Captain John James Robinson-Owen), secondly 11 December 1852 in Saint John, New Brunswick to Amy (née Vernon) Nicholson widow of Captain Thomas L. Nicholson (see William Johnstone Ritchie).
William Shakespeare | William Laud | William Blake | William | William III of England | William Morris | William McKinley | William Howard Taft | William Ewart Gladstone | William the Conqueror | William S. Burroughs | William Shatner | William Faulkner | William Randolph Hearst | William Wordsworth | William Tecumseh Sherman | William Hogarth | Prince William, Duke of Cambridge | William Penn | William Jennings Bryan | William Gibson | William Wilberforce | William James | William Makepeace Thackeray | Fort William | William Hanna | William Hague | William III | William Hurt | William Walton |
It was named Howe Island after William Howe, 5th Viscount Howe, a British officer who served under General James Wolfe at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham during the Seven Years' War, and first appeared on a map in 1818 following a survey by Captain (later Vice Admiral) William Fitzwilliam Owen of the Royal Navy.