Thomas Howard, 16th Earl of Suffolk


Thomas Howard, 16th Earl of Suffolk, 9th Earl of Berkshire FSA, styled Viscount Andover from 1800–20, was a British peer and politician from the Howard family.

Early life

Suffolk was born in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, the second but eldest surviving son of General John Howard, 15th Earl of Suffolk, and Julia, daughter of John Gaskarth of Hutton Hall, Penrith, Cumberland. He gained the courtesy title Viscount Andover on the death of his elder brother, Charles Nevinson, who was killed in a hunting accident in January 1800.

Political career

Suffolk was Member of Parliament for Arundel from 1802–6. He was appointed Major-Commandant of the Malmesbury Volunteers by commission dated 15 December 1803. In 1820, he succeeded his father in the two united earldoms of Suffolk and Berkshire and entered the House of Lords. In politics, he was a liberal Whig, and he voted for the Reform Act 1832. He was not a protectionist and his chief interest was agriculture.
He served as Colonel of the disembodied Wiltshire Militia from 1827 to 1840.

Marriage and issue

Lord Suffolk married the Hon. Elizabeth Jane, daughter of James Dutton, 1st Baron Sherborne and Elizabeth Coke, in 1803. Elizabeth Jane was a double first cousin to Lady Jane Elizabeth Coke, the former wife of Suffolk's late elder brother, Charles Nevinson Howard, Viscount Andover, and thus the niece of agricultural reformer Thomas William Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester and his wife, Jane Dutton. She died in April 1836, aged 60. They had ten children:
Lord Suffolk survived his wife by 15 years and died in December 1851, aged 75. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Charles.