HOWARD, Charles Wentworth George (1814-1879), of Naworth Castle, Brampton, Cumberland and 1 Palace Green, London

His direct ancestors having sat in Parliament since the seventeenth century, Howard was born into a family with an immense political pedigree. His father George Howard, the sixth earl of Carlisle, had sat for the family borough of Morpeth, Northumberland, from 1795-1806, and his elder brother, George, styled viscount Morpeth, to whom he was close, was chief secretary for Ireland in Melbourne’s second ministry.1HP Commons 1790-1820, iv. 250-3; HP Commons 1820-1832, v. 719-29. A member of the ‘Whig cousinhood’, his maternal grandmother was the political hostess Georgiana Cavendish, duchess of Devonshire, and his family connections included the Granvilles, Spencers, Ponsonbys and Greys. At the age of sixteen Howard was ‘an earnest liberal, bent on following his eldest brother into politics’, but his subsequent parliamentary career, which spanned nearly four decades, proved unremarkable.2D.D. Olien, Morpeth: a Victorian public career (1983), 63. He never emerged from his eldest brother’s shadow, though he always remained steadfastly loyal to his party.

In July 1840 Howard came forward as a Liberal at the East Cumberland by-election, necessitated by the death of the sitting member. Following a difficult nomination, when persistent anti-ministerial chanting by the public prevented him from speaking, he was returned unopposed.3Morning Post, 22 July 1840; Newcastle Courant, 24 July 1840. He was in the minority against Peel’s motion of no confidence, 4 June 1841, which brought down Melbourne’s ministry, and at the subsequent general election he declared that ‘the Tory triumph would be of a short duration: the knell of monopoly was rung’.4Newcastle Courant, 9 July 1841. Returned at the top of the poll after a fractious contest, he followed Lord John Russell into the division lobby on most major issues, including for his motion not to reintroduce income tax, 13 Apr. 1842, and his motion to consider the state of Ireland, 23 Feb. 1844. He did though vote with Peel in support of the Maynooth grant, 3 Apr. 1845, later explaining that as ‘the mass of the people in that part of the United Kingdom were Roman Catholic, he would help them sustain their spiritual teachers’.5Standard, 7 Aug. 1848.

An infrequent speaker, Howard’s first two known contributions concerned the corn laws.6Howard’s select committee service also appears to have been infrequent. He is known to have sat on select committees on: parish constables, PP 1842 (470), xiv. 107; India colonies, PP 1842 (479), xiii; the police, PP 1852-53 (603), xxxvi. 2; and education, PP 1864 (468), ix. 13. Initially a proponent of a fixed duty, he criticised Peel’s proposals for a sliding scale, and argued that the ministry’s corn importation bill would damage the country’s trade with the United States, 14 Mar. 1842. He voted for repeal, 10 June 1845, and informed the House the following year that ‘he had no faith in the predictions of those who anticipated evil consequences from such a measure’, insisting that Englishmen would ‘maintain their superiority over foreigners without the aid of Acts of Parliament’, 3 Mar. 1846. He voted for repeal, 15 May 1846. Moving the address in answer to the Queen’s speech, 19 Jan. 1847, he began with an impassioned plea for Parliament to ‘unite for one common and beneficial purpose – the improvement of the condition of Ireland’, and, reflecting his eldest brother’s sympathies on the issue, he went on to declare that ‘I cannot disguise from myself the painful truth, that distress has not been checked, and that the people of Ireland are at this moment in a most fearful state’.7On 7 January 1847 Howard’s brother, viscount Morpeth, had recorded in his journal that ‘the accounts from Ireland grow too shocking’: Extracts from journals kept by George Howard, Earl of Carlisle: selected by his sister, ed. C. Lascelles (1864), 41.

Returned unopposed at the 1847 general election, Howard attended steadily and gave his silent support to Russell’s ministry on most major issues.8In the 1849 session Howard was present for 88 out of 219 divisions: Hampshire Telegraph, 20 Oct. 1849. He voted for the removal of Jewish disabilities, 17 Dec. 1847, and the repeal of the navigation laws, 23 Apr. 1849. He was against Cobden’s motion to reduce public expenditure, 26 Feb. 1849, and Disraeli’s motion to relieve distress, 13 Feb. 1851. At the 1852 general election he dismissed Derby’s recently formed ministry as unfit to govern, and following a heated campaign that was dominated by the issue of free trade, was re-elected in first place.9Manchester Times, 17 July 1852. He voted against Disraeli’s budget, 16 Dec. 1852, backed Gladstone’s economic proposals, 2 May 1853, and supported Aberdeen’s coalition ministry on foreign policy, dividing in the minority against Roebuck’s motion for an inquiry into the condition of the army at Sebastopol, 29 Jan. 1855. Thereafter he gave his unwavering, but still silent support to Palmerston’s administration, voting against Disraeli’s motion criticising the Crimean war, 25 May 1855, Roebuck’s censure of the cabinet, 19 July 1855, and Cobden’s censure motion on Canton, 3 Mar. 1857.10In the 1853 session Howard was present for 74 out of 257 divisions and in 1856 he was present for 83 out of 198: Daily News, 21 Sept. 1853; J.P. Gassiot, Third letter to J.A. Roebuck: with a full analysis of the divisions of the House of Commons during the last session of Parliament (1857), 4.

At the 1857 general election Howard vociferously backed Palmerston, praising the premier for ‘having concluded an honourable peace with Russia, ... avoided a war with America, and [brought about] the pacific termination of the Persian difficulty’.11Daily News, 2 Apr. 1857. Returned unopposed, he voted for Palmerston’s conspiracy to murder bill, 19 Feb. 1858 and against the short-lived Derby ministry’s reform bill, 31 Mar. 1859. Re-elected without a contest in 1859, Howard broke his silence to criticise the conduct of the ecclesiastical commissioners in the north of England, pressing the government not to give them further powers, 6 June 1860, and along with several members of the government, he spoke in defence of William Douglas Christie, the British ambassador to Brazil, whose conduct had recently been called into question, 7 May 1863.12In what became known as the ‘Christie affair’, the British ambassador outraged the Brazilian government by alleging that the British crew of the Prince of Wales, which had been shipwrecked off the coast of Rio, had subsequently been murdered: R.E. Conrad, The destruction of Brazilian slavery, 1850-1888 (1972), 43. His votes during Palmerston’s second ministry reflected his staunch support for franchise reform. He was in minorities for Locke King’s county franchise bill, 13 Mar. 1861, and for Baines’ borough franchise bills, 10 Apr. 1861, 11 May 1864, 8 May 1865. He remained, though, opposed to the ballot, believing that it would not ‘afford that safety to the voter its advocates anticipated; and moreover there would be a fear of tampering with the returns by the government of the day; at least such had been found to be the case in America, where it had been tried’.13Daily News, 2 Apr. 1857.

Returned unopposed at the 1865 general election, Howard backed the Liberal ministry’s reform bill, 27 Apr. 1866, and was in the ministerial minority over the Adullamites’ motion of no confidence, 18 June 1866. He subsequently followed Gladstone into the division lobbies on all the major clauses of the Derby ministry’s representation of the people bill, and voted for his resolutions on the Irish church, 3 Apr. 1868.

Re-elected in second place at the 1868 general election and at the top of the poll in 1874, Howard continued to give his unwavering but largely silent support to the Liberal party. He died from heart failure while staying at Holker House, the Lancashire seat of his brother-in-law, the duke of Devonshire, in April 1879.14The Times, 15 Apr. 1879. His estates, valued at £45,000, passed to his only son, George James Howard, Liberal MP for East Cumberland 1879-80 and 1881-85, who in 1889 succeeded his uncle, William George Howard, as the ninth earl of Carlisle.15England and Wales, National Probate Calendar, Index of wills and administration, 1861-1941, 30 Apr. 1879. In February 1880 his estate was resworn under £50,000. A selection of Howard’s correspondence is held by the British Library.16BL Add Mss 35797, f. 20; 43389, ff. 295, 298; 44440, f. 94; 44784, f. 166.