PM local preacher and connexional officer. He was born in Tadcaster and moved to Leeds in 1863, where he began business as a joiner. In 1873 he set up an architectural practice. He died c.4 November 1918. His son Charles Barker Howdill (1863 or 1864-1941) became a partner in 1893. They designed many chapels, mainly PM and predominantly in the West Riding, Lancashire and London, and a Leeds tannery (1892) for William Beckworth.
D. Colin Dews, 'Thomas Howdill and Charles Barker Howdill', in Christopher Webster (ed.), Building a Great Victorian City: Leeds Architects and Architecture (2011) pp.279-92