HOWARD, Sir George (1718-96), of Stoke, Bucks. and Great Bookham, Surr.

Howard, a ‘pompous’ but ‘good-humoured’ soldier, sat for Stamford on Lord Exeter’s interest and supported Pitt’s administration. He was known as ‘the King’s Long Tail’ or, as Sir Gilbert Elliot put it in 1786, ‘accounted particularly a King’s vote’.Diary of Madame d’Arblay ed. Dobson, ii, 407; Diaries of Robert Fulke Greville, 62; Minto, i. 104. His first duty in the Parliament of 1790 was to steer through the House the divorce bill of Lord Exeter’s heir, which was accomplished on 6 June 1791. He was listed hostile to the repeal of the Test Act in Scotland that session. On 12 Mar. 1792 he conceded the need for an inquiry into military accounts and arrears at the War Office. He justified war with revolutionary France, 22 Feb. 1793, regretting that ‘the cause of France’ had been supported by some opposition Members. Having served nine campaigns abroad, he was confident that both officers and privates were ‘zealously attached to the constitution’. He was chairman of the committee to regulate canal bills, 1 Mar. 1793, and on 1 May teller for the bill to regulate transfers of canal shares. In his last known speech, a rebuke of John Courtenay for a personal attack on Pitt, he described himself as ‘perhaps the eldest Member of the House’, 17 May 1794.

Ten years before he had applied to Pitt for the government of Plymouth. He now obtained that of Jersey. He was taken ill, 15 Nov. 1795, and wrote to Pitt to apologize for absence from the House.PRO 30/8/146, ff. 170, 174. On 24 Nov. he was a defaulter. He died 16 July 1796, before he could take his seat in the new Parliament.