Henry 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.

He was educated at Eton College. In 1849, aged 18, he succeeded his father in the earldom. He attended Christ Church, Oxford, where his nickname was "Twitters",[1] apparently on account of his nervous tics and twitchy behaviour, and where in 1852 he obtained a first in literae humaniores.

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 penal reform. Under the influence of Joshua Jebb he saw the gaols,[lower-alpha 1] with a population including prisoners before any trial, as numerically more significant than the system of prisons for convicts. He was himself a magistrate, and campaigned for the conditions of confinement to be made less comfortable, with more severe regimes on labour and diet. He also wished to see a national system that was more uniform. In response, he was asked to run a House of Lords committee, which sat from February 1863. It drafted a report, and a Gaol Bill was brought in, during 1864; it was, however, lost amid opposition. The Prisons Act 1866, passed by parliament during 1865, saw Carnarvon's main ideas implemented, though with detailed amendments.[2]

In 1866 Carnarvon was sworn of the Privy Council and appointed Secretary of State for the Colonies by Derby. In 1867 he introduced the British North America Act, which conferred self-government on Canada, and created a federation. Later that year, he resigned (along with Lord Cranborne and Jonathan Peel) in protest against Benjamin Disraeli's Reform Bill to enfranchise the working classes.

Returning to the office of the British colonial secretary in 1874, he submitted a set of proposals, the Carnarvon terms, to settle the dispute between British Columbia and Canada over the construction of the transcontinental railroad and the Vancouver Island railroad and train bridge. Vancouver Island had been promised a rail link as a condition for its entry into Canadian confederation.

On his party's return to power in 1885, Carnarvon became Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. His short period of office, memorable only for a conflict on a question of personal veracity between himself and Charles Stewart Parnell, as to his negotiations with the latter in respect of Home Rule, was terminated by another premature resignation. He never returned to office.

Herbert sketched in 1869 by "Ape" for Vanity Fair

Carnarvon also held the honorary posts of Lord Lieutenant of Hampshire between 1887 and 1890 and Deputy Lieutenant of Nottinghamshire. He was regarded as a highly cultured man and was a president and a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries (his time there noted for their campaign to save St Albans Cathedral from Lord Grimthorpe) and a Fellow of the Royal Society as well as was high steward of Oxford University. He was also a prominent freemason, having been initiated in the Westminster and Keystone Lodge. He served as Pro Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of England from 1874 to 1890. With his permission a number of subsequently founded lodges bore his name in their titles.

Concrete Cottages, Old Burghclere, before 1871.[lower-alpha 2] Rare and pioneering concrete dwelling built for the magnificent 4th Earl of Carnarvon. Originally tripartite they show both agricultural and urban Neo-Palladian traits.

Villa Altachiara or Villa Carnarvon, Portofino, Liguria, Italy, from a postcard made before 1900. Prince Frederick William of Prussia stayed there near the end of his life.

Carnarvon became a Freemason in 1856, joining the Westminster and Keystone Lodge, No. 10. In 1860 he was made the second Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Mark Master Masons (created in 1856) and in 1870 he was appointed Deputy Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge of England (UGLE) by Lord Ripon, and was Pro Grand Master from 1874 to 1890. Furthermore, he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1875, confirming, in addition to his work as a Statesman, his interest in innovation, geometry, the Enlightenment, science, the Scientific Revolution and the world.

• 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, Old Burghclere. Rare and early concrete or mass concrete estate housing. The apparatus employed in the construction could have been that patented and manufactured by Messrs. Drake, Brothers, & Reid, of London, in 1868. Designed possibly by Thomas Robjohn Wonnacott or Charles Barry, Jr.[11][lower-alpha 3] Meanwhile, fellow quite nearby landowner Lord Ashburton,[lower-alpha 4] and his clerk of works Thomas Potter, who wrote Concrete: its use in building and the construction of concrete walls, floors, etc., 1877,[12][lower-alpha 5] built circa 1870 at least two pairs of concrete cottages in the Wiltshire villages of All Cannings and Steeple Langford. Carnarvon had long been thinking about labourers' cottages and accompanying allotments.[lower-alpha 6] The Reading Mercury however, reported this building 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) in Portofino, Liguria. A massive villa overlooking Portofino. It was still owned by the Herberts when Evelyn Waugh visited in 1936.[lower-alpha 7]

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:

• George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon (1866–1923), eldest son and heir, the financial backer of the excavation of the 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[13] 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. Aubrey Nigel Henry Molyneux Herbert (1880–1923), of Pixton Park in Somerset and of Teversal,[14][15] in Nottinghamshire,[16] soldier, diplomat, traveller, intelligence officer associated with Albanian independence and Conservative 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.

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.

Wikisource has original works written 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.