HOWARD, Hon. Fulke Greville (1773-1846), of Levens Park, Milnthorp, Westmld.; Elford Hall, Staffs.; Ashtead Park, Surr.; Castle Rising, Norf. and 16 Grosvenor Square, Mdx.

A well-connected Anglo-Irish army officer and former aide-de-camp to the duke of York, Howard had lost the sight of one eye during the Helder expedition of 1799, and had represented the pocket borough of Castle Rising on his father-in-law’s interest since 1808. HP Commons, 1790-1820, iv. 250. As stipulated in his marriage settlement, following his father-in-law’s death in 1819 he held ‘the castle, manor and chase of Rising, with its 60 burgages, 90 messuages, 20 tofts, 4 mills, 50 gardens, 2,000 acres of farmland, 1,500 acres of marsh and 1,000 acres of moorland’ jointly with his wife, together with estates in Westmorland, Staffordshire and Surrey. Norf. RO, Howard (Castle Rising) mss HOW 205-344x2; Norf. RO PR/DM. The poet Robert Southey*, his guest at Levens in January 1830, wrote to Charles Williams Wynn*:

Of all our contemporaries at Westminster one should not have thought him the likeliest to obtain a large property by marriage; but I believe from what I saw and heard that good fortune of this kind has never been better bestowed. New Letters of Robert Southey ed. K. Curry, ii. 349.

Like his brother Arthur Upton, Member for Bury St. Edmunds, 1818-1826, on the interest of their brother-in-law, the 5th earl of Bristol, Howard was an indolent Member, who had given silent support to Lord Liverpool’s administration and voted latterly for Catholic relief, which he did again, 28 Feb. 1821, 10 May 1825; but he voted against permitting Catholic peers to sit in the Lords, 30 Apr. 1822. In 1825, a radical publication noted that he ‘appeared to attend very rarely and to vote with ministers’. Session of Parl. 1825, p. 469. He divided with government against the additional malt duty repeal bill, 3 Apr. 1821, and tax reductions, 11 Feb. 1822, and in their minority against inquiry into the prosecution of the Dublin Orange rioters, 22 Apr. 1823. He voted for repeal of the usury laws, 27 June 1823. The death that September of his mother and of his sister-in-law Lady Templetown in August 1824 gave him much business to attend to, and his attempt to increase his influence in Castle Rising by purchasing additional burgages now failed. Surr. Hist. Cent. Howard of Ashtead mss 203/33/14a-b, 20, 41-42, 45, 50, 53-54, 62, 79, 88, 89a, 94, 96, 98, 100, 102, 105. He voted against condemning the indictment in Demerara of the Methodist missionary John Smith for inciting a slave riot, 11 June 1824. In the 1826 Parliament his only known votes were for Catholic relief, 6 Mar. 1827, 12 May 1828, and emancipation, 30 Mar. 1829. He presented a Waterford petition against the proposed alteration of the corn laws, 10 Mar. 1827, The Times, 10 Mar. 1827. and may have been the ‘Mr. Howard’ named to the select committee on the Catholic land tax, 1 May 1828. The Ultra leader Sir Richard Vyvyan* classified him as a Member whose attitude towards a putative coalition ministry in October 1829 was ‘unknown’. He was listed among the Wellington ministry’s ‘friends’ after the 1830 general election, but was absent from the division on the civil list by which they were brought down, 15 Nov. 1830. Castle Rising was to be disfranchised by the Grey ministry’s reform bill, and Howard voted against its second reading, 22 Mar., and for Gascoyne’s wrecking amendment, 19 Apr. 1831. He spoke against the principle of disfranchisement, but conceded that some reform of Scottish representation was necessary, 28 Mar. He voted against the reintroduced reform bill at its second reading, 6 July, to make the 1831 census the criterion for English borough disfranchisements, 19 July, and against taking a seat from Chippenham, 27 July, and the bill’s passage, 21 Sept. He did not vote on the revised bill at its second reading, 17 Dec. 1831, but he divided against the enfranchisement of Tower Hamlets, 28 Feb., and the third reading, 22 Mar. 1832. He voted against the second reading of the Irish measure, 25 May 1832.

An astute man of business who employed effective agents, Howard did not stand for Parliament again, but he consolidated his Castle Rising holdings, renovated his mansions, travelled in Devon and kept a close watch over his estate and electoral interests. Howard of Ashtead mss 203/28/1-12; 203/30/1-104; 203/31/1-71; 203/33/88, 102, 150, 161; Howard (Castle Rising) mss HOW 22-229x1; 23-339x2; 88-341x3; 650-349x1; 777-349x3; Recs. Ashtead Estate (1873), 109, 176. He died without issue at Elford in March 1846. Gent. Mag. (1846), i. 440. His will, dated 2 June 1842, was proved under £120,000 in England and £4,000 in Ireland. His wife (d. 19 Oct. 1877) was the residuary legatee. The other main beneficiaries were the Bagot, Fortescue and Stuart Wortley families, who succeeded her to the English estates, and Howard’s Upton nephews and nieces, for whom he had provided during his lifetime and upon whom his Irish property now devolved. PROB 8/239; 11/2037/428; IR26/1741/429; Howard of Ashtead mss 203/33/20, 41-42, 50.