Henry Fitzalan-Howard, 15th Duke of Norfolk, KG,GCVO,VD,PC (27 December 1847 – 11 February 1917), styled Lord Maltravers until 1856 and Earl of Arundel and Surrey between 1856 and 1860, was a British Unionist politician and philanthropist. He served as Postmaster General between 1895 and 1900, but is best remembered for his philanthropic work, which concentrated on Roman Catholic causes and the city of Sheffield.
Norfolk succeeded to the dukedom at the age of 12 on the death of his father on 25 November 1860. He also succeeded to the hereditary office of Earl Marshal held by the Dukes of Norfolk. At the same time he inherited almost 50,000 acres with 19,400 acres in the West Riding of Yorkshire, 21,000 acres in Sussex and 4,400 acres in Norfolk.[1]
In 1895, he was sworn of the Privy Council and appointed Postmaster General[3] by Lord Salisbury, a post he held until early 1900, when he resigned in order to serve in the Boer War.[4] In 1895 he also became Mayor of Sheffield; serving two terms during which he arranged the city's monumental celebrations in honour of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897. Shortly thereafter he was appointed the first Lord Mayor of Sheffield, but retained the office only until November 1897. He was appointed an honorary Freeman of the City of Sheffield three years later, in March 1900.[5] In November 1900 he became the first Mayor of Westminster.[6]
Aged 53, he went in 1900 to South Africa for service in the Second Boer War as a lieutenant colonel in the Imperial Yeomanry,[7] in the course of which he was wounded near Pretoria and invalided back to Britain. After the end of the war, he was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel Commandant of his volunteer battalion (now the 2nd Volunteer Battalion, Royal Sussex Regiment) on 24 December 1902,[8][2] and chaired the Royal Commission on Militia and Volunteers that was established in 1903. The commission attempted to define the role of the auxiliary forces, and made detailed proposals on how their deficiencies in training and equipment could be addressed.
Norfolk's commission proposed a Home Defence Army raised by conscription, which was unpopular with the Volunteers and Yeomanry, and was quickly shelved. However, in conjunction with the Elgin Commission on the War in South Africa, the Norfolk Commission's work influenced the creation of the Territorial Force (TF) under the 1908 Haldane Reforms, which subsumed the old Volunteer Force.[9][10][11] He retired from command of the 4th Battalion, Royal Sussex Regiment (as the battalion had become in the TF) in 1913 after 42 years' service.[2]
In his capacity as Earl Marshal, the duke arranged the state funerals of William Ewart Gladstone (1898), Queen Victoria (1901), and King Edward VII (1910), and the coronations of Edward VII (1902) and George V (1911).[12][13]
Apart from serving as Earl Marshal between 1860 and 1917, Norfolk was Lord Lieutenant of Sussex between 1905 and 1917.
He was made a Knight of the Garter in 1886,[14] and received the Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order (GCVO) from King Edward VII on 11 August 1902, following the King's coronation two days earlier.[15][16]
As is common with the Dukes of Norfolk, but exceptional within the British aristocracy, Norfolk was a Roman Catholic. In his dual role as Premier Duke and most prominent Catholic in England, he undertook a programme of philanthropy which served in part to reintegrate Catholics into civic life. He was born a generation after the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829 but before the reconstitution of Roman Catholic dioceses in 1850. By the time he came of age as Duke in 1868, the process of Catholic Emancipation had made the establishment of Catholic institutions legal, but the reality of two hundred years of legislation in favour of the Church of England left Catholics with few structures of their own.[citation needed]
Norfolk's first major benefaction commemorated his coming of age as Duke. At his ancestral seat of Arundel Castle (being also one of the Earls of Arundel), he sponsored the construction of the Church of Our Lady and St Philip Neri between 1868 and 1873. This church was later chosen to serve as Arundel Cathedral in 1965 and rededicated in 1971 to include Saint Philip Howard, 20th Earl of Arundel, one of his ancestors.[18]
In 1877, he married his first wife, Lady Flora Hastings. He later wrote, 'Shortly after my most happy marriage, I wished to build a church as a thank-offering to God.' To commemorate this occasion, he undertook the construction of a church in his titular ancestral seat in Norwich, Norfolk. After commencing in 1882 with a gift of £200,000, construction would not be completed until 1910, nearly 23 years after Lady Flora's death in 1887. This church was also later chosen to serve as St John the Baptist Cathedral, Norwich when the Roman Catholic Diocese of East Anglia was re-established in 1976.
In the 1890s Norfolk was instrumental in the campaign that convinced the Vatican authorities to relax its restrictions on Catholic students enrolling at the great English universities, culminating with the co-founding of St Edmund's College, Cambridge along with Baron Anatole von Hugel. He was a significant contributor to the Father Damien fund to fight leprosy. He also donated funds for the building of the University of Sheffield and was its initial Chancellor between 1905 and 1917.
Lady Katherine Mary Fitzalan-Howard (1912-2000) married in 1940 Joseph Anthony Moore Phillips. Lady Katherine Phillips was the aunt of Captain Mark Phillips.[21][22]
Lady Winifrede Alice Fitzalan-Howard (1914–2006) married in 1943 Lieutenant-Colonel John Edward Broke Freeman
In 1908 Gwendolen succeeded her father as Lady Herries of Terregles. The Duke of Norfolk died in February 1917, aged 69, and was succeeded in the dukedom by his only surviving son, Bernard. On his death, Lord Curzon said he was a man "who was diffident about powers which were in excess of the ordinary".[citation needed] The Duchess of Norfolk died in August 1945, aged 68. She was succeeded in the Scottish lordship of parliament by her son, Bernard.
Ancestry
Ancestors of Henry Fitzalan-Howard, 15th Duke of Norfolk
Thomas Howard (1627–1677) 5th Duke of Norfolk, 21st/14th/2nd Earl of Arundel, 4th/6th Earl of Surrey, 16th Baron Mowbray 1660–1677 18th Baron Strange of Blackmere, 15th Baron Talbot, 14th Baron Furnivall 1654–1677
Henry Howard (1628–1684) 6th Duke of Norfolk, 22nd/15th/3rd Earl of Arundel, 5th/7th Earl of Surrey, 1st Earl of Norwich and Baron Howard of Castle Rising, 18th Baron Strange of Blackmere, 17th Baron Mowbray, 15th Baron Talbot, 14th Baron Furnivall 1672–1684
Henry Howard (1655–1701) 7th Duke of Norfolk, 22nd/15th/3rd Earl of Arundel, 5th/7th Earl of Surrey, 2nd Earl of Norwich and Baron Howard of Castle Rising, 18th Baron Mowbray, 19th Baron Strange of Blackmere, 15th Baron Talbot, 14th Baron Furnivall, 1684–1701
Lord Thomas Howard (1662–1689)
Henry Charles Howard (d. 1720)
Thomas Howard (1683–1732) 8th Duke of Norfolk, 23rd/16th/4th Earl of Arundel, 6th/8th Earl of Surrey, 3rd Earl of Norwich and Baron Howard of Castle Rising, 18th Baron Strange of Blackmere, 15th Baron Talbot, 14th Baron Furnivall, 19th Baron Mowbray 1701–1732
Edward Howard (1685–1777) 9th Duke of Norfolk, 24th/17th/5th Earl of Arundel, 7th/9th Earl of Surrey, 4th Earl of Norwich and Baron Howard of Castle Rising, 20th Baron Mowbray, 20th Baron Strange of Blackmere, 15th Baron Talbot, 14th Baron Furnivall 1732–1777
Philip Howard (1688–1750)
Bernard Howard (1674–1735)
Earldom of Norwich (3rd creation) and Barony of Howard of Castle Rising extinct and Baronies of Furnivall, Mowbray, Segrave, Strange of Blackmere, and Talbot abeyant, 1777
Henry Fitzalan-Howard (1847–1917) 15th Duke of Norfolk, 30th/23rd/11th Earl of Arundel, 13th/15th Earl of Surrey, Lord Maltravers, Earl of Arundel and Surrey 1860–1917
Charles Edward Stourton (1923–2006) 27th Baron Segrave, 24th/26th Baron Mowbray, 23rd Baron Stourton
Miles Fitzalan-Howard (1915–2002) 17th Duke of Norfolk, 32nd/25th/13th Earl of Arundel, 15th/17th Earl of Surrey, 4th Baron Howard of Glossop 1975–2002
^Ian F.W. Beckett, Riflemen Form: A Study of the Rifle Volunteer Movement 1859–1908, Aldershot: Ogilby Trusts, 1982, ISBN 0 85936 271 X, pp. 231–4, 247–53.
^Col John K. Dunlop, The Development of the British Army 1899–1914, London: Methuen, 1938, pp. 148–51, 173–8, Chapter 14.
^Edward M. Spiers, The Army and Society 1815–1914, London: Longmans, 1980, ISBN 0-582-48565-7, p. 255, Chapter 10.
^Robinson, John Martin. The Dukes of Norfolk: A Quincentennial History. Oxford University Press, 1982, p. 230.
^Debretts. Kelly's Directories. 2000. p. 838. ISBN9780333545775. Retrieved 17 September 2022. Duke of Norfolk...Lady Katherine Mary, b. 1912 [died 2000]; has Order of Mercy: m. 1940, Lieut. - Col . Joseph Anthony Moore Phillips, D.S.O., M.B.E., D.L., late King's Dragoon Guards, [son of Joseph Herbert Phillips and brother of Peter William Garside Phillips - father of Mark Anthony Peter Phillips] and has issue living, Anthony Bernard Moore...
^The Ampleforth Journal. Ampleforth Abbey. 1973. p. 176 (Volume 79). Retrieved 17 September 2022. ...Princess Anne married...The father of The Groom is the younger brother of Colonel Anthony Phillips, D.S.O., M.B.E., D.L. who in 1940 married Lady Katherine Fitzalan Howard (sister of the 16th Duke of Norfolk ) and sent his son Tony to Ampleforth .