# Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Howard, Henry Fitzalan-

​HOWARD, HENRY FITZALAN-, fifteenth Duke of Norfolk (1847–1917), the eldest son of Henry Granville FitzAlan-Howard, fourteenth Duke [q.v.], by his wife, Augusta, younger daughter of the first Baron Lyons [q.v.], was born in London 27 December 1847. In 1860, at the age of thirteen, he succeeded his father. In that year he was sent to the Oratory School, Edgbaston, in which John Henry Newman was endeavouring to imbue the sons of English Roman Catholics with the English public school tradition. At that time Oxford and Cambridge were not open to Roman Catholics; and at the age of seventeen the duke was sent abroad to travel. He stayed for a long time at Constantinople with his uncle, the second Lord Lyons [q.v.], to whose formative influence he owed much.
While still a young man the duke began his long career of work on behalf of his co-religionists. At the age of twenty-one he was described by William George Ward [q.v.] as a model chairman. His judgement was active and independent to a degree which must have tried the patience of great prelates and others in authority. Their arguments, except on matters of doctrine, were always subjected to his searching criticism, in spite of his profound and affectionate regard for the individuals with whom the arguments originated. He once felt it his duty to make a public protest in The Times newspaper against the methods of the ‘plan of campaign’. This protest brought him into collision with members of the Irish hierarchy. He was a convinced unionist, though he was most unwilling to quarrel with the Irish Catholics, whose children owed much to his efforts on behalf of Catholic education, and to the financial sacrifices which he made for the benefit of Catholic schools and churches.
The duke's services to the state were but a small part of his public activities. He was, however, postmaster-general in Lord Salisbury's government from 1895 to 1900. He resigned that office in order to volunteer for active service, as an officer of the Imperial Yeomanry, in the South African War. He sat on many royal commissions, and was indefatigable in the House of Lords, particularly when educational matters were under discussion; but he never again held ministerial office. He was the first mayor of Westminster (1899); he was mayor of Sheffield in 1895, and first lord mayor of that city in 1896. The parks and recreation grounds which he gave to Sheffield covered 160 acres and were valued at £150,000. He was one of the founders of the university of Sheffield, and its first chancellor (1904).
Throughout his life the Duke of Norfolk was in close relations with the Vatican, and he had dealings with four successive popes. In 1887 he was sent by Queen Victoria as a special envoy to Pope Leo XIII, with presents and congratulations. He several times entertained papal nuncios who came on missions to this country. He liked such duties, though he was sufficiently British to find the duty of entertaining eminent foreigners rather irksome. He was, however, intensely interested in public ceremonials, both civil and ecclesiastical, and his hereditary office of Earl Marshal was for him no sinecure. He could not endure the least slovenliness or vagueness in the arrangements for which he was responsible. On the occasion of the coronation of King Edward VII (1902) he revived many historical usages which had fallen into neglect. In this matter, as also at the coronation of King George V in 1911, he collaborated happily with the Anglican bishops.
His careful attention to detail is illustrated by the architectural works for which he assumed responsibility. He was a great builder, passionately devoted to the Gothic style. His first church was that of Our Lady and St. Philip Neri at Arundel, of which Joseph Aloysius Hansom [q.v.] was the architect. As the duke's taste developed he cultivated an earlier and severer style; he preferred the great church of St. John the Baptist at ​Norwich to any of his other buildings. He became more and more independent of his architects, and during years of mourning and bereavement he found a constant solace in working out his own conceptions. In all his buildings there is much stained glass of high quality, but especially in the exquisite little chapel which he built at Arundel Castle.
The duke died in London 11 February 1917. He was twice married: first, in 1877 to Lady Flora Abney-Hastings (died 1887), elder daughter of Charles Frederick, first Baron Donington; secondly, in 1904 to Mary, elder daughter of Marmaduke, eleventh Baron Herries, who succeeded to her father's barony in 1908. By his first wife the duke had one child, a son, who died in 1902; by his second wife a son (born 1908), who succeeded him, and three daughters.
The duke combined great independence of character with great loyalty to causes and individuals. Eagerly and actively interested in affairs, he showed both caution and courage as a public man. His disposition was frank and open, but he inherited the diplomatic talent of his mother's family. His high and serious interests never subdued his natural gaiety and humour or weakened his strong taste for domestic life. As a private individual he reminded his friends of Sir Thomas More; and the parallel is not without interest since the duke was the first Catholic layman, since the death of More, who had played a great and honourable part in English public life. He earned the respect and esteem which are due to strong patriotism, to sober judgement, to unassuming dignity, and to strong moral and religious convictions.
[The Times, 12 February 1917; private information. Portrait, Royal Academy Pictures, 1922.]