Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Third Supplement.djvu/300

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Howard, H.
D.N.B. 1912–1921
Howard, R.

Norwich to any of his other buildings. He became more and more independent of his architects, and during years of mourning and bereavement he found a constant solace in working out his own conceptions. In all his buildings there is much stained glass of high quality, but especially in the exquisite little chapel which he built at Arundel Castle.

The duke died in London 11 February 1917. He was twice married: first, in 1877 to Lady Flora Abney-Hastings (died 1887), elder daughter of Charles Frederick, first Baron Donington; secondly, in 1904 to Mary, elder daughter of Marmaduke, eleventh Baron Herries, who succeeded to her father's barony in 1908. By his first wife the duke had one child, a son, who died in 1902; by his second wife a son (born 1908), who succeeded him, and three daughters.

The duke combined great independence of character with great loyalty to causes and individuals. Eagerly and actively interested in affairs, he showed both caution and courage as a public man. His disposition was frank and open, but he inherited the diplomatic talent of his mother's family. His high and serious interests never subdued his natural gaiety and humour or weakened his strong taste for domestic life. As a private individual he reminded his friends of Sir Thomas More; and the parallel is not without interest since the duke was the first Catholic layman, since the death of More, who had played a great and honourable part in English public life. He earned the respect and esteem which are due to strong patriotism, to sober judgement, to unassuming dignity, and to strong moral and religious convictions.

[The Times, 12 February 1917; private information. Portrait, Royal Academy Pictures, 1922.]


HOWARD, ROSALIND FRANCES, Countess of Carlisle (1845–1921), promoter of women's political rights and of temperance reform, was born 20 February 1845. She was the youngest daughter of Edward John, second Baron Stanley of Alderley [q.v.], the whig statesman, who between 1855 and 1866 held office as president of the Board of Trade and postmaster-general. Her mother, Henrietta Maria [q.v.], eldest daughter of Henry Augustus Dillon-Lee, thirteenth Viscount Dillon [q.v.], was one of the founders of Girton College, Cambridge. Her marriage in her twentieth year (1864) with George James Howard [q.v.], who in 1889 became the ninth Earl of Carlisle, brought her at first into an artistic circle; for her husband was a landscape painter of distinction in the pre-Raphaelite tradition, and Burne-Jones and William Morris were among their friends. Politics made larger demands on them when, in 1879, George Howard was called to take the place of his dead father in the parliamentary representation of East Cumberland. In the early 'eighties his house at Palace Green, Kensington, became a political centre where the Howards foregathered with Sir George Trevelyan, John Morley, Sir Wilfrid Lawson, and Joseph Chamberlain in his radical days. But the liberal party schism over Home Rule divided the family also. George Howard followed his cousin the Duke of Devonshire into liberal unionism. His wife, never forgetting the Irish blood in her veins, was fervently for Home Rule. She would not be silent about convictions held with the intensity of a religion, and in early womanhood she had moved in thought from the whig traditions of her family to the radical left. She left London, and henceforth her life lay in her country homes at Naworth and Castle Howard. She became an active member of local governing bodies, and she found scope in the discharge of local responsibilities, in varied plans for improving the housing, education, and social conditions of her neighbourhood, and in political work through the two women's organizations of which she became president. To the last task she brought a ready flow of emotional eloquence, a musically trained voice, and a keen instinct for debate polished by the conversational battles in which she delighted. These gifts made her unquestionably the foremost woman speaker of her day.

Had she played no part in politics Lady Carlisle would have been marked out as a business woman with a real talent for administration. Her husband cared more for his art than for the management of landed property, and left the family estates mainly in her control. For the latter half of her life she was her own land agent and architect, picking her farmers with a keen eye for character, and planning the rebuilding of farmsteads and cottages, with the minute love of detail on which she prided herself. The estate finances were controlled with method and economy. Hereditary debts, including some of Charles James Fox's gambling debts, were cleared away. Froude the historian, who told her that she was born to be an empress, said that her character

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