Geoffrey William Algernon Howard JP (12 February 1877 – 20 June 1935) was an English Liberal politician. He served as Vice-Chamberlain of the Household under H. H. Asquith between 1911 and 1915. Background and education Howard was the fifth son of George Howard, 9th Earl of Carlisle, and The Honourable Rosalind Frances Stanley, daughter of Edward Stanley, 2nd Baron Stanley of Alderley. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated as a Master of Arts. He was also joint Secretary of the Cambridge University Liberal Club from 1897 to 1899. On the break-up of his father's estates (which had been left to his mother and subsequently to his sister Lady Mary, wife of Gilbert Murray), he was allocated Castle Howard. Political career Howard was selected as Liberal candidate for the Eskdale division of Cumberland at the 1906 General Election. As part of the Liberal landslide victory he gained the seat for the party, ousting the sitting Conservative Claude Lowther with a swing of 6%. In 1909 he was appointed private secretary to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade, Harold Tennant. The Liberal Party lost ground at the January 1910 general election, but Howard held his seat, and was appointed private secretary to the Prime Minister H. H. Asquith. Another General Election followed 11 months later but this time Howard lost his Eskdale seat to Claude Lowther. Out of Parliament, he was keen to make a return as soon as possible. In 1911 a vacancy occurred in the Westbury division of Wiltshire when the sitting Liberal MP resigned to take up a diplomatic appointment. Howard was chosen as the Liberal candidate for the resulting by-election and retained the seat with a slightly reduced majority. In 1911 Asquith appointed him Vice-Chamberlain of the Household, a post he held until 1915. He then served as a Junior Lord of the Treasury from 1915 to 1916. In 1916 Asquith was replaced as Prime Minister by Lloyd George and went into opposition to the Coalition Government. Howard followed Asquith into opposition. As a result, when the Coalition was endorsing candidates for the 1918 General election, at Westbury, endorsement was given to his Unionist opponent George Palmer, who defeated Howard by a margin of 17%. At the 1922 general election, he sought a return to Parliament in his old stomping ground of Cumberland when he contested the unionist-held North Cumberland. However, he