George Howard, 7th Earl of Carlisle

George William Frederick Howard, 7th Earl of Carlisle, KG, KP, PC (18 April 1802 – 5 December 1864), styled Viscount Morpeth from 1825 to 1848, was a British statesman, orator, and writer.^[1]

The Right Honourable The Earl of Carlisle KG KP PC
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
In office 6 March 1850 – 21 February 1852
Monarch	Victoria
Prime Minister	Lord John Russell
Preceded by	The Lord Campbell
Succeeded by	Robert Adam Christopher
Chief Secretary For Ireland
In office 22 April 1835 – 1841
Monarch	Victoria
Prime Minister	The Viscount Melbourne
Preceded by	Sir Henry Hardinge
Succeeded by	The Lord Eliot
Personal details
Born	(1802-04-18)18 April 1802 Berkeley Square, Westminster, England
Died	5 December 1864(1864-12-05) (aged 62) Castle Howard, Yorkshire, England
Political party	Whig Party
Alma mater	Christ Church, Oxford

Life

Carlisle was born in Westminster, London, the eldest son of George Howard, 6th Earl of Carlisle by his wife Lady Georgiana Cavendish, eldest daughter of William Cavendish, 5th Duke of Devonshire. Lord Lanerton and Charles Howard were his younger brothers. He was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, where he earned a reputation as a scholar and writer of graceful verse, obtaining in 1821 both the chancellor's and the Newdigate prizes for a Latin poem, Paestum,^[2] and an English one. He maintained his interest in poetry throughout his life, exchanging sonnets with William Wordsworth. In 1826 he accompanied his maternal uncle, the Duke of Devonshire, to the Russian Empire, to attend the coronation of Tsar Nicholas I, and became a great favourite in society at St Petersburg.^[3]

At the general election in 1826 Carlisle was returned to parliament as member for the family borough of Morpeth (in Northumberland), a seat he held until 1830, and then represented Yorkshire until 1832 and the West Riding of Yorkshire from 1832 to 1841 and from 1846 to 1848. The latter year he succeeded his father in the earldom and entered the House of Lords.^[4]

Carlisle served under Lord Melbourne as Chief Secretary for Ireland between 1835 and 1841, under Lord John Russell as First Commissioner of Woods and Forests from 1846 to 1850 and as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster from 1850 to 1852 and under Lord Palmerston as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland from 1855 to 1858 and again from 1859 to 1864.^[5] In 1835 he was appointed to the Privy Councils of the United Kingdom and Ireland. He served as a Lord in Waiting to the Queen's mother, the Duchess of Kent at the coronation of Queen Victoria in 1838. ^[6]

On 2 April 1853, he was given the Freedom of the City of Edinburgh,^[7] and in 1855, he was made a Knight of the Garter.^[8]

In the six weeks after he stepped down as Chief Secretary of Ireland in 1841, the signatures of 160,000 men and women who appreciated his service were gathered on 652 sheets of paper and stuck together, creating the Morpeth Roll, a continuous roll measuring 420 metres.^[9]

Lord Carlisle died unmarried at Castle Howard in December 1864, aged 62, and was buried in the family mausoleum. He was succeeded in the earldom by his younger brother, Reverend William George Howard.^[10]

Legacy

On Bulmer Hill, about a mile from Bulmer village in North Yorkshire, is the Carlisle Memorial Column,^[2] erected by public subscription to his memory in 1869–70. It is inscribed:

AD MDCCCLXIX: IN PRIVATE LIFE WAS LOVED
BY ALL WHO KNEW HIM
BY HIS PUBLIC CONDUCT
WON the RESPECT of his COUNTRY
and LEFT THE BRIGHT EXAMPLE
OF A TRVE PATRIOT
AND EARNEST CHRISTIAN
VIIth EARL of CARLISLE

Statues of him by the Irish sculptor John Henry Foley were also erected in Phoenix Park, Dublin, and in Brampton, Carlisle in Cumbria, both in 1870. The statue in Brampton stands on Brampton motte and depicts him in the robes of a Knight of the Garter.^[11] The statue in Phoenix Park stood in the Peoples' Garden until 1956, when it was blown off its plinth in an explosion, and subsequently removed to Castle Howard in Yorkshire.^[12] The plinth it once stood on remains in place.^[13]

• 
  The statue of Lord Carlisle, which stood in the Phoenix Park, Dublin, from 1870 to 1956
• 
  The plinth of the former statue today
• 
  Statue of Lord Carlisle on Brampton Motte
• 
  Obelisk at top of Bulmer Hill
• 
  Inscription on obelisk (see text)

Notes

1. "Viscount Morpeth (Hansard)". api.parliament.uk. Retrieved 26 September 2024.
2. 'The Pride of Yorkshire', leaflet for exhibition on George Howard, Castle Howard, 2010
3. EB (1911), p. 340.
4. EB (1911), pp. 340–341.
5. EB (1911), p. 341.
6. "Key to Mr Leslie's picture of Queen Victoria receiving the Holy Sacrament at her Coronation". National Portrait Gallery.
7. Gilbert, W.M., Edinburgh in the Nineteenth Century, Edinburgh, 1901: 124
8. Barker, George Fisher Russell (1891). "Howard, George William Frederick" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 28. pp. 19–21.
9. Christopher Ridgway, editor. 'The Morpeth Roll – Ireland identified in 1841’ (Four Courts, 2013).
10. EB (1878), p. 110.
11. "Howard Monument". Old Cumbria Gazetteer. Retrieved 6 November 2018.
12. "Carlisle Monument, Peoples' Garden, Phoenix Park". Buildings of Ireland. Retrieved 6 November 2018.
13. "Monument men – An Irishman's Diary on the Earl of Carlisle, Goldsmith and Burke". irishtimes.com. Retrieved 25 April 2018.

References

• Baynes, T. S., ed. (1878), "George William Frederick Howard, Seventh Earl of Carlisle" , Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 5 (9th ed.), New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, p. 110
•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911), "Carlisle, Earls of s.v. George William Frederick Howard", Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 5 (11th ed.), Cambridge University Press, pp. 340–341

External links

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Barker, George Fisher Russell (1891). "Howard, George William Frederick". Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 28. pp. 19–21.
• Biography
• Obituary in the Sidney Mail
• Extracts from journals kept by George Howard, earl of Carlisle: selected by his sister, Lady Caroline Lascelles
• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by the Earl of Carlisle

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by William Ord Hon. William Howard	Member of Parliament for Morpeth 1826–1830 With: William Ord	Succeeded by William Ord Hon. William Howard
Preceded by Viscount Milton William Duncombe Richard Fountayne-Wilson John Marshall	Member of Parliament for Yorkshire 1830–1832 With: William Duncombe 1830–1831 Henry Brougham 1830 Richard Bethell 1830–1831 Sir John Vanden-Bempde-Johnstone, Bt 1830–1832 George Strickland 1831–1832 John Charles Ramsden 1831–1832	constituency divided
New constituency	Member of Parliament for the West Riding of Yorkshire 1832–1841 With: Sir George Strickland, Bt	Succeeded by Hon. John Stuart-Wortley-Mackenzie Edmund Beckett Denison
Preceded by Hon. John Stuart-Wortley-Mackenzie Edmund Beckett Denison	Member of Parliament for the West Riding of Yorkshire 1846–1848 With: Edmund Beckett Denison 1846–1847 Richard Cobden 1847–1848	Succeeded by Richard Cobden Edmund Beckett Denison
Political offices
Preceded by Sir Henry Hardinge	Chief Secretary for Ireland 1835–1841	Succeeded by Lord Eliot
Preceded by The Earl Canning	First Commissioner of Woods and Forests 1846–1850	Succeeded by Lord Seymour
Preceded by The Lord Campbell	Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster 1850–1852	Succeeded by Robert Adam Christopher
Preceded by The Earl of St Germans	Lord Lieutenant of Ireland 1855–1858	Succeeded by The Earl of Eglinton
Preceded by The Earl of Eglinton	Lord Lieutenant of Ireland 1859–1864	Succeeded by The Lord Wodehouse
Academic offices
Preceded by The Earl of Eglinton	Rector of Marischal College, Aberdeen 1853–54	Succeeded by William Henry Sykes
Honorary titles
Preceded by The Lord Wenlock	Lord Lieutenant of the East Riding of Yorkshire 1847–1864	Succeeded by The Lord Wenlock
Peerage of the United Kingdom
Preceded by George Howard	Earl of Carlisle 1848–1864	Succeeded by William George Howard