He was the third but eldest surviving son of The Hon. Penn Assheton Curzon, and wife Sophia Howe, suo jure Baroness Howe.
Public life
As his father predeceased his own father, Curzon inherited his grandfather's viscountcy and in 1820. He took the additional name of Howe by Royal licence a year later and was created Earl Howe that year. From 1829 to 1830, he was a ToryLord of the Bedchamber to George IV, appointed a GCH in 1830 and was Lord Chamberlain to The Queen 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 the King, 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. 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.
Richard William Penn Curzon-Howe, 3rd Earl Howe, ancestor of subsequent earls.
Hon. Frederick Curzon-Howe. Died unmarried.
Hon. Henry Dugdale Curzon-Howe, married Eleanor Young Swinburne, daughter of Maj.-Gen. John Swinburne of Keynsham, Somerset, on 22 October 1857. They had six children.
Maj. Hon. William Henry Curzon-Howe, married first Beatrice Louisa Margaret Page on 26 October 1870. He later married Emily Cowper, daughter of Frederick Cowper JP for Cumberland, 3 November 1874. Hey had one daughter.
Hon. Ernest George Curzon-Howe, married Augusta Latham Hallifax, daughter of Brig. Gen. Robert Dampier Hallifax and granddaughter of Samuel Hallifax, Bishop of Gloucester and St. Asaph. They had six children.
Howe's first wife died in 1836, and on 9 October 1845, he married Anne Gore, second daughter of Admiral Sir John Gore. They had three children:
Hon. Montagu Curzon, married on 19 October 1886 to Esmé FitzRoy and wife Gertrude Duncombe ), whose daughter Mary married her cousin the 5th Earl Howe and was mother of the 6th Earl Howe.
