Algar Howard

Sir Algar Henry Stafford Howard (7 August 1880 – 14 February 1970) was a senior British Army officer and long-serving officer of arms at the College of Arms in London. He served as the Garter Principal King of Arms from 1944 to 1950 before retiring. He was the third consecutive Fitzalan Pursuivant of Arms Extraordinary to attain the highest rank at the College of Arms. Early life and family Algar Henry Stafford Howard was born on 7 August 1880. He was the eldest son of Sir Edward Stafford Howard, KCB, JP, DL (1851–1916), of Thornbury Castle and Cilymeanllwyd in Carmarthenshire, and his first wife, Lady Rachel Campbell (died 1906), youngest daughter of John Campbell, 2nd Earl Cawdor. He married Violet Ethel, daughter of Sir Henry Meysey Meysey-Thompson, 1st and last Baron Knaresborough, on 11 October 1921. She was the widow of Captain Alexander Moore Vandeleur, 2nd Life Guards, who was killed in action at Zandvoorde during the First Battle of Ypres on 30 October 1914. The couple had two daughters: Anne Violet (born 1923), who married John Cahill, son of John Cahill, of Knockrom West in Scartaglen; and Elizabeth Helen (born 1924), who married Harold William Norman Suckling Walker, eldest son of Colonel James Coulthard Walker of the Indian Army. Military career Howard was appointed a Second lieutenant of the Carmarthen Militia Artillery on 31 January 1900, and was promoted to Lieutenant on 6 September 1900. In the First World War Howard served with the Royal Gloucestershire Hussars. He won the Military Cross and attained the rank of Major.