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Algar Howard

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Major General Sir
Algar Howard
KCB KCVO MC TD
Algar Howard in military dress, 1929 portrait
Algar Howard in military dress, 1929 portrait
Garter Principal King of Arms
In office
2 June 1944 – 6 December 1950
Monarch George VI
Preceded by Sir Gerald Wollaston
Succeeded by George Bellew
Personal details
Born Algar Henry Stafford Howard
7 August 1880
Died 14 February 1970 (aged 89)
Spouse Violet Ethel
(m. 1921)
Children 2
Education Harrow School
King's College London
Occupation Herald

Sir Algar Henry Stafford Howard KCB KCVO MC TD (7 August 1880 – 14 February 1970) was a senior British Army officer and long-serving officer of arms at the College of Arms in London. He served as the Garter Principal King of Arms from 1944 to 1950 before retiring. He was the third consecutive Fitzalan Pursuivant of Arms Extraordinary to attain the highest rank at the College of Arms.

Early life

Algar Henry Stafford Howard was born on 7 August 1880. He was the eldest son of Sir Edward Stafford Howard, KCB, JP, DL (1851–1916), of Thornbury Castle and Cilymeanllwyd in Carmarthenshire, and his first wife, Lady Rachel Campbell (died 1906), youngest daughter of John Campbell, 2nd Earl Cawdor.[1] He was educated at Harrow School and King's College London, and was called to the bar in 1904.[2]

Military career

Howard was appointed a second lieutenant of the Carmarthen Militia Artillery on 31 January 1900,[3] and was promoted to Lieutenant on 6 September 1900. In 1908, with the militia Carmarthen Royal Garrison Artillery and having the rank of captain, he was moved to the Royal Gloucestershire Hussars as a second lieutenant.[4]

Howard served with the Royal Gloucestershire Hussars from 1914 in the First World War, to 1919.[5] He took part in the landing at Suvla Bay in the third week of August 1915.[6] In Egypt in November 1915 he was defending the Suez Canal.[7] He was in action with "D" Squadron of the Hussars in the Sinai and Palestine campaign in October 1917.[8] He won the Military Cross in 1918 and was mentioned in dispatches.[5][9]

A private diary by Howard survived for August 1915 to October 1918.[10] His rank of Major he retained later in the Gloucestershire Yeomanry.[5]

Heraldic career

Howard began his heraldic career on 23 May 1911 with an appointment as Fitzalan Pursuivant of Arms Extraordinary for the coronation of King George V.[11] This was followed in October of that year with an appointment to the office of Rouge Dragon Pursuivant of Arms in Ordinary.[12]

In 1919, Howard was promoted to the office of Windsor Herald of Arms in Ordinary and he held this position until 1931.[13] In that year he was made Norroy King of Arms when Sir Gerald Woods Wollaston was promoted. Howard was also appointed Registrar of the College of Arms in 1928, and during the Second World War the records of the college were stored at his home of Thornbury Castle in Gloucestershire for safekeeping.

In 1943, the office of Ulster King of Arms was merged with that of Norroy and Howard became the first Norroy and Ulster King of Arms. He remained in this office until 1944 when he was promoted to Garter Principal King of Arms, succeeding Gerald Wollaston.[14][15] He retired from this office, and from the College of Arms, in 1950.

Howard was created Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (CVO) in 1935, Companion of the Bath (CB) in 1937, Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (KCVO) in 1944, and Knight Commander of the Bath (KCB) in 1951.

Arms

Coat of arms of Algar Howard, Garter king of arms (1944-1950)
File:Coat of arms of Algar Howard, Garter.png Coronet
King of Arms
Crest
On a chapeau gules turned up ermine a lion statant gardant, tail extended.
Escutcheon
His arms of office, impaling Howard arms, viz. Gules, on a bend between 6 crosses crosslet fitchy argent a scocheon or charged with a demi-lion rampant pierced through the mouth with an arrow in a royal tressure gules..[16]
Motto
Sola Virtus Invicta ("Virtue alone is invincible")
Orders
the circlet of the Royal Victorian Order and Order of the Bath. Collar of Esses.
Badge
A slip of oak vert fructed or charged on the stem with a crescent sable (granted 1913).
Symbolism
Arms derived from the House of Howard and the Dukes of Norfolk.

Family

Howard married Violet Ethel, daughter of Sir Henry Meysey Meysey-Thompson, 1st and last Baron Knaresborough, on 11 October 1921. She was the widow of Captain Alexander Moore Vandeleur, 2nd Life Guards, who was killed in action at Zandvoorde during the First Battle of Ypres on 30 October 1914. Vandeleur was a son of Hector Stewart Vandeleur (1836–1909), and grandson of Crofton Moore Vandeleur.[17][18]

The couple had two daughters: Anne Violet (born 1923), who married John Cahill, son of John Cahill, of Knockrom West in Scartaglen; and Elizabeth Helen (born 1924), who married Harold William Norman Suckling Walker, eldest son of Colonel James Coulthard Walker of the Indian Army.[1]

See also

References

  1. Back to citation occurrence 1.0 Back to citation occurrence 1.1 Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, 2007, vol. 2, p. 2909
  2. Back to citation Dauglish, Milverton Godfrey; Stephenson, Pleydell Keppel, eds. (1911). The Harrow School Register, 1800-1911. London: Longmans, Green, & Co. p. 746.
  3. Back to citation "No. 27159". The London Gazette. 30 January 1900. p. 601.
  4. Back to citation "The Services". Cheltenham Looker-On. 14 March 1908. p. 11.
  5. Back to citation occurrence 5.0 Back to citation occurrence 5.1 Back to citation occurrence 5.2 Burke, Sir Bernard (1921). A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain. Burke Publishing Company. p. 936.
  6. Back to citation Westlake, Ray (1 June 1996). British Regiments at Gallipoli. Pen and Sword. p. 258. ISBN 978-0-85052-511-3.
  7. Back to citation "With the Yeomanry in Egypt - Soldiers Of Gloucestershire Museum". Soldiers Of Gloucestershire Museum.
  8. Back to citation The Cavalry Journal. 1936. p. 321.
  9. Back to citation Upper Ten Thousand: An Alphabetical List of All Members of Noble Families. Kelly's Directories. 1921. p. 885.
  10. Back to citation Grist, Robin (30 April 2018). A Gallant County: The Regiments of Gloucestershire in the Great War. Casemate Publishers. p. 390. ISBN 978-1-5267-3608-6.
  11. Back to citation "No. 28504". The London Gazette. 16 June 1911. p. 4506.
  12. Back to citation "No. 28545". The London Gazette. 27 October 1911. p. 7794.
  13. Back to citation "No. 31598". The London Gazette. 14 October 1919. p. 12654.
  14. Back to citation "No. 36552". The London Gazette. 6 June 1944. p. 2707.
  15. Back to citation Begent, Peter J; Chesshyre, D. H. B. (1999). The Most Noble Order of the Garter, 650 Years. Spink. p. 142. ISBN 978-1-902040-20-2.
  16. Back to citation "arms as Norroy King of arms in 1934".
  17. Back to citation Burke's Irish Family Records
  18. Back to citation Quinn, James. "Vandeleur, Crofton Moore". www.dib.ie.

Bibliography

  • Appointment to Norroy, The Times, 7 February 1931
  • Obituary, The Times, 16 February 1970
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