Susan Ann Howe's Autograph Album

Date: [unknown] [unknown]
Location: [unknown]
Surnames/tags: HOWE NOVA SCOTIA

Catherine Susan Ann (McNab) Howe (1807-1890) collected autographs, many supplied by her husband and friends. Here is ther album.

Autograph Album

Susan Ann Howe saw that she had an opportunity and she took it. Given the many connections Joe made, she collected autographs of the famous people of the world she knew. Her family could also be helpful. The result is a beautiful leather-bound album containing many fascinating autographs and signatures. She collected autographs from her native province, colonial officials who dealt with Nova Scotia and famous people of her day. Some autographs are of people whose names are still well recognized today.

The autographs in Susan Ann’s collection may be on the envelope, at the end of the letter, or cut out. At that time letters and notes were written for purposes now served by telephone, email and texting. These were usually addressed by name with any honorifics, and at the bottom left corner of the envelope the initials and surname of the sender. Personal letters and notes for people who may have had others deal with part of their correspondence were marked “Private”, and letters from households in mourning were edged in black. Many were hand delivered, so no postage was paid. Some postage stamps were cut out of this album when it was being examined by scholars after 1945. “Penny Red” stamps were in use for decades after being introduced in 1841, but some believe the stamps included “Penny Black” stamps used in 1840 to 1841. Here are a few of the autographs with notes about the writers.

This album contains many references (often in the address of a cover) to the Hollands. There were two Henry Hollands, father and son:

• Henry Holland 1st Bart (1788-1873) FRS, DCL, was a British physician and travel writer who was made a baronet in 1853. In 1822 he married Margaret Emma (Caldwell) Holland (1795-1830) with whom he had two sons and two daughters, including Henry Holland, 1st Viscount Knutsford (1825–1914). He later became son-in-law to the wit Sydney Smith (1771-1845) whose daughter, Saba (Smith) Holland (1802-1866) he married as his second wife and with whom he had two daughters.

• Henry Thurstan Holland GCMC PC (1825-1914) was a British Conservative politician, best known for serving as Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1887 to 1892.

Lady Holland nee Margaret Jean (Trevelyan) Holland (1835-1906) was the second wife of Henry Thurstan Holland

Charles Bowyer Adderley MP (bef.1814-1905), 1st Baron Norton PC was a British Conservative politician. He had argued in the British parliament that the British North American colonies be made to defend themselves to spare the British the expense of defending them. This was argued at a time that those colonies had no power over their foreign policy or vote in any body that controlled policy. Joe Howe argued with him in a public letter. From 6 July 1866 – 1 December 1868 Adderley held the office of Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies.

Edward Cardwell (1813-1886), 1st Viscount Cardwell PC, PC (Ire), FRS was a prominent British politician. Cardwell was the Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1864 to 1866.

Henry George Grey KG (1802-1894), 3rd Earl Grey became colonial secretary in 1846. He was the first minister to proclaim that the colonies were to be governed for their own benefit and not for the mother country’s; the first systematically to accord them self-government so far as then seemed possible; the first to introduce free trade into their relations with Great Britain and Ireland.

Other Colonial officials in the album are:

• Henry Stafford Northcote GCMG GCIE (1846-1911), 1st Baron Northcote, Governor of Bombay 1899-1903 and third Governor-General of Australia between 1904 and 1908.

• Richard Plantagenet Campbell Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville (1823-1889), 3rd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1867 to 1868 and Governor of Madras from 1875 to 1880.

• Alfred Milner KG GCB (1854-1925), 1st Viscount Milner shared with Joseph Howe a dream of a global Imperial parliament, headquartered in London, seating delegates of British descent from Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

• Colonel Sir William Owen Lanyon, colonial administrator in South Africa from 1879-1881.

• John Young, 1st Baron Lisgar (1807-1876), was the second Governor General of Canada, in office from 1869 to 1872.

Charles Hastings Doyle (1803-1883) arrived in Halifax in 1861 to command British troops in the Atlantic area and soon supported Joseph Howe’s advocacy of the Intercolonial Railway, leading to a warm friendship. Doyle acted as interim governor of Nova Scotia in 1863-4 and in 1865. He was Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia from 1867 to 1873.

Other Lieutenant-Governors’ autographs in the album are:

• General Sir John Gaspard Le Marchant, Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia 1852-58 wrote a note of condolence to Joseph Howe when his son John died.

• George Augustus Constantine Phipps GCB GCMG (1819-1890), Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia 1858-1863

• William Fenwick Williams (1800-1883), commander-in-chief of the British forces in British North America in April 1859, then Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia 1865-1867.