Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 2.djvu/327

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Howard
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Howell

earldom the public-houses both on the Yorkshire and on the Cumberland estates were closed, and one of his very rare speeches in the House of Lords was in favour of the licensing bill of the liberal government in 1908. Politics, however, were but a secondary interest to him; and though fond of country life and sports, especially shooting, he had from the beginning left the administration of his great estates in Cumberland, Northumberland, and Yorkshire in the hands of his wife. His real devotion was to art. Having shown as a boy a remarkable gift for likeness and caricature, he took up the practice of painting in earnest after leaving Cambridge, and was the pupil successively of Alphonse Legros and Giovanni Costa. Of his many friendships the most intimate were with artists, especially with the two above named and with Burne-Jones, Leighton, Watts, Thomas Armstrong, Pepys Cockerell, and latterly Sir Charles Holroyd. He had an intense sympathy for Italy and the Italians, and in early life cherished a close and reverential friendship for Mazzini. He became a skilled and industrious painter of landscape, principally in water-colour. His work was conceived in a topographical spirit, and he was at his best in studies made direct from nature rather than in work carried out afterwards in his studio. In later life he suffered much from gastric trouble, and partly for the sake of health made frequent winter journeys abroad, to Egypt, India, and East Africa, painting wherever he went; but the scenery which best inspired him was that of his beautiful north country homes, Naworth and Castle Howard. In the last year of his life he published 'A Picture Song-Book' (1910) a set of coloured reproductions from drawings in illustration of old English songs done to amuse his grandchildren. He was an influential trustee of the National Gallery for more than thirty years. He died at his daughter's residence, Brackland, Hindhead, Surrey, on 16 April 1911, and was buried at Lanercost Priory, Naworth.

Just before his fatal illness Carlisle had taken an active part in the movement for stopping the alterations of the bridge and paths in St. James's Park proposed by the office of works. He had at the same time agreed to offer to the National Gallery for a price much below its market value the masterpiece of Mabuse, the 'Adoration of the Magi,' which had been bought by the fifth earl and been for a century the chief glory of the Castle Howard collection. His wish in this respect was carried out by his widow after his death, and the picture is now the property of the nation. His private tastes and distastes in art were very decided, but he knew on occasion how to suppress them and support reasonable views which were not his own. He was a man of remarkable social charm, though not free from moods of cynicism and irony. A portrait of him in early life by Watts is in the gallery at Limnerslease. A sketch of him was executed for Grillion's Club by Henry Tanworth Wells in 1894. In 1864 he married Rosalind, youngest daughter of the second Lord Stanley of Alderley, by whom he had six sons, three of whom predeceased him, and five daughters, of whom one died in infancy. The eldest daughter, Lady Mary, is the wife of Professor Gilbert Murray; another daughter, Lady Cecilia, is wife of Mr. Charles Henry Roberts, liberal M.P. for Lincoln since 1906.

Carlisle was succeeded by his son, Charles James Stanley Howard, tenth earl (1867-1912), who was born on 8 March 1867, educated at Rugby and Balliol College, Oxford, and married in 1894 Rhoda Ankaret, daughter of Colonel Paget W. L'Estrange, by whom he had one son and three daughters. He was captain in the third battalion Border regiment of militia, with which he served in South Africa in 1902; was an active member of the London school board (1894–1902); contested without success in the unionist interest Chester-le-Street, the Hexham division of Northumberland, and Gateshead; was unionist M.P. for South Birmingham (1904–11), and latterly one of the parliamentary whips for his party. His health was already failing when he succeeded to the title, and he died at 105 Eaton Place, London, on 21 Jan. 1912; he was buried at Lanercost.

[Private information; The Times, 18 and 21 April 1911; International Studio, 1903, xxl. 121.]


HOWELL, DAVID (1831–1903), dean of St. David's, son of John Howell, farmer and calvinistic methodist deacon, of Treos, in the parish of Llangan, Glamorganshire, was born on 16 Aug. 1831. His mother being of weak health, he was brought up for the most part by his grandmother, Mary Griffiths of Tynycaeau, a church- woman. At the age of fifteen he returned to his father's home, which was now at Bryn Cwtyn, near Pencoed. Farming, however, was not to his mind, and, having shown a decided bent for letters, he was persuaded by his mother and the rector of St. Mary Hill (afterwards well known as Archdeacon Griffiths of Neath) to prepare