| Honorific-Prefix: | The Right Honourable |
| The Earl Howe | |
| Office2: | Member of the House of Lords |
| Status2: | Lord Temporal |
| Term Start2: | 21 March 1820 |
| Term End2: | 12 May 1870 |
| Predecessor2: | The 1st Viscount Curzon |
| Successor2: | The 2nd Earl Howe |
| Birth Date: | 11 December 1796 |
| Spouse: | |
| Children: | 13 |
Richard William Penn Curzon-Howe, 1st Earl Howe, (11 December 1796 – 12 May 1870), was a British peer and courtier.
He was the third but eldest surviving son of The Hon. Penn Assheton Curzon (the eldest son of Assheton Curzon, 1st Viscount Curzon, and his wife Esther Hanmer), and his wife Sophia Howe, suo jure Baroness Howe (the eldest daughter of Richard Howe, 1st Earl Howe (of the first creation), and his wife Mary née Hartop).
As his father predeceased his own father, Curzon inherited his grandfather's viscountcy in 1820. He took the additional name of Howe by royal licence a year later and was created Earl Howe (a revival of the title previously held by his maternal grandfather) that year. From 1829 to 1830, he was a Tory Lord of the Bedchamber to King George IV, appointed a GCH in 1830 and was Lord Chamberlain to Queen Adelaide from 1830 to 1831 and again from 1834 to 1837. On his mother's death in 1835, he inherited her barony.
His office gave him considerable influence over the Queen and through her King William IV, both of whom liked and admired him. Malicious gossip that he was the Queen's lover was not taken seriously even at the time, and is entirely discounted by historians. It was his position as an extreme Tory, and his strong opposition to the Reform Act 1832 which made him unacceptable to the Government, and Lord Grey eventually insisted on his dismissal, much to the Queen's distress. Subsequent negotiations to reinstate him came to nothing.[1]
William IV's biographer described him as a man whose vanity and arrogance should have made him insufferable, yet who clearly possessed personal charm great enough to make those who knew him overlook his faults.[1]
Lord Howe married Lady Harriet Georgiana Brudenell, second daughter of Robert Brudenell, 6th Earl of Cardigan, on 19 March 1820. They had ten children:
Howe's first wife died in 1836, and on 9 October 1845, he married Anne Gore (died 1877), second daughter of Admiral Sir John Gore. They had three children:
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