Henry Herbert, 4th Earl of Carnarvon

Henry Howard Molyneux Herbert, 4th Earl of Carnarvon,

Born at Grosvenor Square, London, Carnarvon was the eldest son and heir of Henry Herbert, 3rd Earl of Carnarvon (d.1849), by his wife Henrietta Anna Howard, a daughter of Lord Henry Howard-Molyneux-Howard, younger brother of Bernard Howard, 12th Duke of Norfolk. The Hon. Auberon Herbert was his younger brother.

Youth

He was educated at

Early political career, 1854–66

Carnavon made his maiden speech in the House of Lords on 31 January 1854, having been requested by Lord Aberdeen to move the address in reply to the Queen's Speech. He served under Lord Derby, as Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1858 to 1859, aged twenty-six.

In 1863 he worked on

In the same year, he set in motion plans to impose a system of confederation on the various states of Southern Africa. The situation in southern Africa was complicated, not least in that several of its states were still independent and so required military conquest before being confederated. The confederation plan was also highly unpopular among ordinary southern Africans. The Prime Minister of the Cape Colony (by far the largest and most influential state in southern Africa) firmly rejected confederation under Britain, saying that it was not a model that was applicable to the diverse region, and that conflict would result from outside involvement in southern Africa at a time when state relations were particularly sensitive.^[3] The liberal Cape government also objected to the plan for ideological concerns; Its formal response, conveyed to London via Sir Henry Barkly, had been that any federation with the illiberal Boer republics would compromise the rights and franchise of the Cape's Black citizens, and was therefore unacceptable.^[4] Other regional governments refused even to discuss the idea.^[5] Overall, the opinion of the governments of the Cape and its neighbours was that "the proposals for confederation should emanate from the communities to be affected, and not be pressed upon them from outside."^[6]

According to historian Martin Meredith, Lord Carnarvon was primarily concerned with "imperial defence", and "regarded the Cape and its naval facilities at Simon's Bay as being the most important link in the imperial network".^[7] He thus decided to force the pace, "endeavouring to give South Africa not what it wanted, but what he considered it ought to want."^[8] He sent colonial administrators such as Theophilus Shepstone and Henry Bartle Frere to southern Africa to implement his system of confederation. Shepstone occupied and annexed the Transvaal in 1877, while Bartle Frere, as the new High Commissioner, led imperial troops against the last group of independent Xhosa in the Ninth Frontier War. Carnarvon then used the rising unrest to suspend the Natal constitution, while Bartle Frere overthrew the elected Cape government, and then moved to invade the independent Zulu Kingdom.

However the confederation scheme collapsed as predicted, leaving a trail of wars across Southern Africa. Humiliating defeats also followed at

He (Carnarvon) thought it no harm to adopt this machinery (Canadian Confederation System) just as it stood, even down to the numbering and arrangement of the sections and sub-sections, and present it to the astonished South Africans as a god to go before them. It was as if your tailor should say – "Here is a coat; I did not make it, but I stole it ready-made out of a railway cloak-room, I don't know whether you want a coat or not; but you will be kind enough to put this on, and fit yourself to it. If it should happen to be too long in the sleeves, or ridiculously short in the back, I may be able to shift a button a few inches, and I am at least unalterably determined that my name shall be stamped on the loop you hang it up by.^[9]

The confederation idea was dropped when Carnarvon resigned in 1878, in opposition to Disraeli's policy on the

Carnarvon became a

• 1855–1878: The Highclere mausoleum or chapel was built for Henrietta Anna, Countess of Carnarvon, in memory of his father and her husband, Henry Herbert, 3rd Earl of Carnarvon. Between 1839 and 1842, his father the third earl had employed Sir Charles Barry to turn the Georgian Highclere house into a Jacobethan castle. The interiors and west wing were carried out by Sir Charles Barry's assistant Thomas Allom who also provided the design of the funerary chapel-mausoleum. The entrance hallway-vestibule inside was designed by Sir Gilbert Scott. The work on the house was complete by 1878.
• 1869–1870: Church of St Michael and All Angels, Highclere, by Sir Gilbert Scott.
• 1870: Concrete Cottages, Long Piddle, Burghclere Bottom, Scouses Corner, Kingsclere or Sydmonton road,
  Charles Barry, Jr.^[12][c] (Around the same time, neighbouring landowner Lord Ashburton^[d] and his clerk of works Thomas Potter, who wrote Concrete: its use in building and the construction of concrete walls, floors, etc., 1877,^[13][e] built at least one pair of concrete cottages in the Wiltshire villages of All Cannings and Steeple Langford.) Carnarvon had long been thinking about labourers' cottages and accompanying allotments.^[f] The Reading Mercury reported the Burghclere project on Saturday, 30 October 1869:

  "BURGHCLERE – Considerable amount of interest has been excited in this locality on the subject of Cheap Dwellings for the Working Classes, owing to a report that the Earl of Carnarvon was about to start the new system of building houses in concrete. His Lordship has already commenced the erection of a block of three cottages at Burghclere Bottom, and no doubt the result will be anticipated with much interest both by landed proprietors and tenant farmers. This plan, if successful, will settle much controversy as to the predictability of building suitable farm cottages at a cheap rate, as up to this time cottages in brickwork do not afford interest on the capital expended. The work is to be done with Tall's Patent Concrete Machine, and is not expected to cost more than 6L. [£6] per rod

  standard thickness [a rod is 5 meters, or 5.5 yard, 16.5 feet]. Many buildings of various descriptions have already been erected on this principle throughout the country, and competent judges have pronounced them the exact kind of building that is wanted. They are said to have a neat appearance when completed, and are not only stronger and more durable than brickwork, but warmer and consequently more dry and healthy." Reading Mercury, Saturday, 30 October 1869.

• 1874–1881: Villa Altachiara ("Highclere" in Italian) (Villa Carnarvon) near Portofino, Liguria. A massive villa overlooking Portofino. It was still owned by the Herberts when Evelyn Waugh visited in 1936.^[g]

Marriages and issue

Lord Carnarvon married twice. His first marriage was in 1861 to Lady Evelyn Stanhope (1834–1875), daughter of George Stanhope, 6th Earl of Chesterfield, and Hon. Anne Elizabeth Weld-Forester, by whom he had one son and three daughters:

• tomb of Tutankhamun
  ;
• Lady Winifred Herbert; married as her second husband Herbert Gardner, 1st Baron Burghclere, and was the mother of Evelyn Gardner, who married the novelist Evelyn Waugh. Evelyn Gardner's marriage soon ended in divorce and, despite the opposition of the Herbert family, Waugh remarried to her half first cousin^[14] Laura Herbert, a daughter of Aubrey Herbert of Pixton, a son of the 4th Earl by his second wife.
• Lady Margaret Herbert; married George Herbert Duckworth, a notable civil servant and half-brother of the novelist Virginia Woolf and of the artist Vanessa Bell.
• Lady Victoria Herbert.

Following his first wife's death in 1875, Lord Carnarvon married his first cousin Elizabeth Catherine Howard (1857–1929) in 1878. She was a daughter of Henry Howard of Greystoke Castle, near Penrith, Cumberland (brother of Henrietta Anna Molyneux-Howard (1804–1876), wife of Henry Herbert, 3rd Earl of Carnarvon), a son of Lord Henry Howard-Molyneux-Howard and younger brother of Bernard Howard, 12th Duke of Norfolk. Elizabeth Howard's brother was Esmé Howard, 1st Baron Howard of Penrith. By his second wife he had two further sons:

• Hon.
  Member of Parliament for Yeovil. His daughter Laura Herbert was the second wife of Evelyn Waugh
  .
• Hon. Mervyn Robert Howard Molyneux Herbert (1882–1929), of Tetton, Kingston St Mary, Somerset, third son (second son by second wife), a diplomat and cricketer. Tetton was a former Acland property bequeathed to him by his father.

He owned 35,000 acres (14,000 ha), mostly in Somerset and Nottinghamshire.^[18]

Death and burial

Lord Carnarvon died in June 1890, aged 59, at Portman Square in London. His second wife survived him by almost forty years and died in February 1929, aged 72.

Notes

References

1. ^ Charmley 2013.
2. ^ McConville 1995, p. 97, Ch. 3.
3. ^ Reader's Digest Association South Africa 1992, p. 182.
4. ^ Mostert 1992, p. 1247.
5. ^ Cana 1909, p. 89, Ch. VII.
6. ^ Theal 1902, p. 402-3.
7. ^ Meredith 2007, p. 63.
8. ^ Michell 1910, p. 109.
9. ^ Statham 1881, p. 239.
10. ^ Parker 2013, p. 37, "Lord Carnarvon".
11. ^ Chisholm 1911.
12. ^ Collins 1959.
13. ^ Potter 1908.
14. ^ "Obituary : Bridget Grant". The Telegraph. 23 July 2005. Retrieved 17 July 2019.
15. ^ Monument to Lord Carnarvon (Memorial). Brushford Church, Somerset.
16. ^ Ref:DD\DRU: "HERBERT FAMILY OF PIXTON PARK, Dulverton, Somerset Heritage Centre, The Teversal estate in Nottinghamshire, formerly belonging to the Molyneux family, was brought into the Herbert family by Henrietta Howard, daughter of Lord Henry Howard-Molyneux-Howard of Greystoke, who married Henry Herbert, Lord Porchester, later 3rd Earl of Carnarvon, in 1830
17. ^ Mellors 1924, p. 265.
18. ^ Bateman, John. The great landowners of Great Britain and Ireland. London: Harrison. p. 79.

• Cana, Frank Richardson (1909). South Africa: From the Great Trek to the Union. Chapman & Hall, Limited.
• ISBN 978-0-571-30925-2
  .
•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Carnarvon, Earldom of s.v. Henry Howard Molyneux Herbert". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 5 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 360.
• Collins, Peter (1959). Concrete: the vision of a new architecture: a study of Auguste Perret and his precursors. Horizon Press.
• McConville, Seán (1995). "Chapter 3: Carnarvon and National Penal Policy". English Local Prisons, 1860-1900: Next Only to Death. Psychology Press.
  ISBN 978-0-415-03295-7
  .
• Mellors, Robert (1924). Men of Nottingham and Nottinghamshire: Being Biographical Notices of Five Hundred Men and Women who Were Born, Or Worked, Or Abode, Or Died in the County of City of Nottingham. Bell.
• ISBN 978-0-7432-8614-5
  .
• Michell, Sir Lewis (1910). The Life and Times of the Right Honourable Cecil John Rhodes 1853-1902. Vol. 1. New York: M. Kennerley.
• Mostert, Noël (1992). Frontiers: the epic of South Africa's creation and the tragedy of the Xhosa people. Knopf.
• Parker, Alexander (2013). 50 People Who Stuffed Up South Africa. Jacana.
  ISBN 978-0-9870437-2-6
  .
• Potter, Thomas (1908). Concrete: its use in building and the construction of walls, floors, etc.
• Reader's Digest Association South Africa (1992). "Confederation from the Barrel of a Gun". Illustrated history of South Africa: the real story. Reader's Digest Association South Africa.
  ISBN 978-0-947008-90-1
  .
• Statham, Francis Reginald (1881). Blacks, Boers, & British: A Three-cornered Problem. Macmillan and Company. p. 239.
• Theal, George McCall (1902). Progress of South Africa in the Century. Toronto: Linscott.

Further reading

• Lee, Sidney (1891). "Herbert, Henry Howard Molyneux" . In Stephen, Leslie; Lee, Sidney (eds.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 26. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
• Underhill, Frank; de Kiewiet, C.W. (1955). Duffering-Carnarvon Correspondences, 1874-1878. Toronto: Champlain Society Publications.
• Roberts, Andrew (2000). Salisbury: Victorian Titan. London: Orion Books.

External links

Wikisource has original works by or about:
Henry Herbert, 4th Earl of Carnarvon

• Works by or about Henry Herbert, 4th Earl of Carnarvon at Internet Archive
• Edited compilation of the Duffering-Carnarvon Correspondences, 1874-1878, provided by the Champlain Society.

Political offices
Preceded by Chichester Fortescue	Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies 1858–1859	Succeeded by Chichester Fortescue
Preceded by Edward Cardwell	Secretary of State for the Colonies 1866–1867	Succeeded by The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
Preceded by The Earl of Kimberley	Secretary of State for the Colonies 1874–1878	Succeeded by Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, Bt
Preceded by The Earl Spencer	Lord Lieutenant of Ireland 1885–1886	Succeeded by The Earl of Aberdeen
Honorary titles
Preceded by The Marquess of Winchester	Lord Lieutenant of Hampshire 1887–1890	Succeeded by The Earl of Northbrook
Peerage of Great Britain
Preceded by Henry John Herbert	Earl of Carnarvon 1849–1890	Succeeded by George Herbert