Archbishop William Howley
In the end section of Viscount Beaumont’s School hall, which is now mainly used as a classroom, there is a marble or plaster bust set on a plinth on the wall. The bust clearly depicts a gentleman of some importance – but who?
Erica Smith told me that she remembers it being there when she was a teacher some while back and found out that it was the bust of Archbishop William Howley. Her research found:
- William Howley was born in 1766 at Ropley, near Winchester in Hampshire, where his father was the vicar.
- He was educated at Winchester.
- 1783 he went up to New College Oxford. After graduating he worked as a private tutor.
- 1791 he became an active Freemason
- 1809 he returned to Oxford as Regius Professor of Divinity and Canon of Christchurch.
- 1813 he was consecrated as Bishop of London where his cathedral was St Paul’s.
- 1828 he was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury.
- 1831 he presided over the coronation of King William IV and Queen Adelaide.
- 1837 at 5 a.m. on 20th June he went to Kensington Palace with the Lord Chamberlain, the Marquis of Conyngham, to inform the 18-year-old Princess Victoria that her uncle, King William IV had died and that she was Queen of Great Britain and Ireland.
- 1838 on 28th June he crowned the young Queen Victoria in Westminster Abbey.
- 1840 on 10 February he presided at the wedding of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.
- In the 1840s he almost certainly christened the royal children including Princess Victoria who became Empress of Germany and mother of the Kaiser Wilhelm II, who led his country into the First World War against Britain, and Albert Edward who became King Edward VII of Great Britain and Ireland – the great grandfather of Elizabeth II.
- 1848 he died and was buried after an elaborate funeral in Addington the official summer residence of Archbishops of Canterbury located near Croydon, London.
Clearly a prominent and influential member of the clergy over a number of years and involved with important events and coronations.Why is Howley’s bust in Coleorton School?
On 29th August 1805 William Howley married Mary Frances Belli. They had two sons and three daughters. On 16th June 1825 one of their daughters Mary Anne was married to George Howland Willoughby Beaumont, nephew of Sir George Beaumont the 7th baronet of Stoughton Grange in Leicestershire.
On 7th February 1827 George Howland Willoughby succeeded him becoming the 8th Baronet. They lived at Coleorton Hall. When his father-in-law became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1828. a lodge along Rempstone Road was either built or renamed Canterbury Lodge.
So important family connections.
In St Mary’s Church, Coleorton, is a rather fine chair which William used at one of the coronations over which he presided.
Viscount Beaumont’s School was originally built in 1702 in the same building as a “Hospital” or almshouse funded by a bequest from the 3rd Viscount Beaumont, but in 1867 a new building was needed – the current school building. So the bust would have been donated to the school after William Howley’s death. We don’t know the circumstances of this donation, but it is still there celebrating an important and interesting connection to Coleorton.