Henry Lascelles, 6th Earl of Harewood

Early life and marriage

Lascelles was the son of Henry Lascelles, 5th Earl of Harewood, and Lady Florence Bridgeman, daughter of Orlando Bridgeman, 3rd Earl of Bradford. He was born at the London home of his maternal grandfather, 43 Belgrave Square.

Inheritance and wealth

In 1916 Lascelles inherited the vast fortune of the 2nd Marquess of Clanricarde, his great-uncle. In a letter to his mother dated 20 April 1916, Lascelles estimated the gross value of his inheritance from Lord Clanricarde at £2,750,000, with a net value of around £2,000,000 after estate tax and expenses. From this, he anticipated that he would receive an annual income of £80,000, from which he would pay approximately £34,000 in income tax; privately, he expressed his disappointment that a fortune of nearly £3,000,000 would be reduced by taxation to a net annual income of £46,000. |access-date=2 August 2025

Estates and residences

During Lascelles' youth, his father had sold the family's grand London townhouse in Hanover Square, Mayfair, in 1893.{{cite thesis |access-date=2 August 2025

In April 1918, an agreement was reached with the Dowager Lady Burton, widow of Michael Bass, 1st Baron Burton, for the purchase of a palatial London townhouse, Chesterfield House, for £140,000. The sale was finalised after the end of the First World War, and Lascelles took up residence there in 1919. |access-date=2 August 2025 In 1925, he purchased a country house and horse stud, Egerton House in Newmarket, Suffolk, which he used during the annual racing season.{{cite thesis |access-date=2 August 2025

In 1931, King George V and Queen Mary purchased 32 Green Street, Mayfair, as a London home for Princess Mary, rendering Chesterfield House surplus to the couple's needs. The Harewoods vacated Chesterfield House in early 1932.{{cite thesis |access-date=2 August 2025 |editor-last=Sheppard |editor-first=F. H. W. |chapter-url=https://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol40/pt2/pp187-188#h3-s6 |access-date=2 August 2025 |access-date=2 August 2025 |access-date=3 August 2025 |url-access=subscription

Marriage to Princess Mary

Lord Harewood married Princess Mary, only daughter of King George V and Queen Mary, at Westminster Abbey, on 28 February 1922. His best man was Sir Victor Mackenzie, 3rd Baronet.

After their marriage, Lord Harewood and Princess Mary split their time between their homes, Chesterfield House in London; Goldsborough Hall, part of the Harewood Estate; and Harewood House itself, in Yorkshire, which became their family home in 1930, after the death of his father in October 1929. They had two children:

• George Henry Hubert Lascelles, 7th Earl of Harewood (born at Chesterfield House on 7 February 1923, baptised at St Mary's Church, Goldsborough, on 25 March 1923, and died on 11 July 2011);
• Gerald David Lascelles (born at Goldsborough Hall on 21 August 1924, and died on 27 February 1998).

Their elder son, the 7th Earl of Harewood, wrote about his parents' marriage in his memoirs, The Tongs and the Bones, and described their relationship, saying that "they got on well together and had a lot of friends and interests in common". He also noted that "[s]hy, aloof and worse, I have heard my father called since; but that was not how his friends knew him [or] how his family felt about him; and I knew then, and know still, that when I was 24 I lost potentially the best friend and mentor I could ever have – at precisely the moment I discovered this was so".

Military career

After education at Eton College, Lascelles attended the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, serving until 1905. He was an honorary attaché at the British embassy in Paris from 1905 to 1907, then served as aide-de-camp to the Governor General of Canada, Earl Grey, until 1911.

In 1913, he joined the Territorial Army as second lieutenant in the Yorkshire Hussars yeomanry. He was promoted lieutenant in the reserve of officers in 1914. Post-war he was promoted major in 1920 and retired in 1924.

Meanwhile, at the front, he was wounded in the head at the Second Battle of Givenchy, but recovered to fight in the Battle of Loos in 1915, and was wounded twice more as well as gassed. He was promoted captain and later major in command of a battalion (the 3rd) in 1915, and lieutenant-colonel in 1918. He was appointed Companion of the Distinguished Service Order (DSO), and received a bar to that decoration, both in 1918, as well as the French Croix de Guerre.

He continued his interest in the Territorial movement after the war, as Honorary Colonel of the 1st (City of London) Battalion, London Regiment (Royal Fusiliers) from 1923, the 5th Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment from 1937, and as president of the West Yorkshire Territorial Forces Association from 1928. He was also appointed in 1937 honorary air commodore of the 609 (West Riding) Bomber Squadron of the Auxiliary Air Force.

Other interests

After the war, Lascelles remained interested in local Yorkshire issues and events, often contributing to the Leeds Board of Management. He was president of the Yorkshire Rural Community Council. He was Lord Lieutenant of the West Riding of Yorkshire from 1927 until his death.

He was president of the Royal Agricultural Society of England in 1929 when that year's Royal Show was held at Harrogate.

Interested in equestrian sports, he served as Master of the Bramham Moor Hounds from 1921, and was a steward of the Jockey Club and co-editor of Flat Racing (1940) for the London Library.

Lord Harewood, a Freemason, served as Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge of England from 1942 to 1947.

Political career

As Viscount Lascelles, he attempted to enter the House of Commons in 1913. He stood as the Unionist candidate in the 1913 Keighley by-election. (The Liberal incumbent, Sir Stanley Buckmaster, had been appointed Solicitor General.) In the three-cornered fight, which also included a Labour candidate, he came second to Buckmaster by 878 votes.

He did not seek election again, and his defeat led to a later distaste for politics. He declared in later life: "[E]very war in which Britain had been involved had been due to the inefficiency of politicians, and they began what soldiers had to end".

On succeeding to his father's earldom, he became a member of the House of Lords.

Death and legacy

Lord Harewood died of a heart attack on 24 May 1947 at the age of 64 at his home, Harewood House. He is buried in the Lascelles' family vault at All Saints' Church, Harewood. Lady Harewood, the Princess Royal, survived him by almost eighteen years, dying in 1965.

The Harewood Estates were valued at £1,400,000 for probate, upon which approximately £800,000 in death duties were payable.

It is widely understood that Virginia Woolf based the character of Archduke Henry on him in her novel Orlando, a tribute to her lover Vita Sackville-West. Henry Lascelles was one of West's suitors. In the 2019 film Downton Abbey, Viscount Lascelles is played by Andrew Havill.

Honours and arms

British:

• Companion of the Distinguished Service Order (DSO), with Bar – 3 June 1918 (Bar – 3 Apr 1919)
• Knight Companion of the Garter (KG) – 27 February 1922
• Knight of Grace of the Order of St John of Jerusalem – 1 March 1923
• Territorial Decoration (TD) – 10 May 1929
• Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order (GCVO) – 1 January 1934
• Personal Aide-de-Camp (ADC(P)) – 1 February 1937
• Recipient of the King George VI Coronation Medal – 12 May 1937

Foreign:

• Croix de Guerre 1914–1918 (France)
• Grand Cross of Order of Muhammad Ali (Egypt)
• Order of St Olav (Norway)

Ancestry

References

References

1. (2004). "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Volume 32". Oxford University Press.
2. (1 March 1922). "The Royal Wedding: Princess Mary married to Viscount Lascelles at Westminster Abbey". [[The Barrier Miner]].
4. "The Wedding of 6th Earl of Harewood and Princess Mary". [[National Portrait Gallery, London]].
5. Vickers, Hugo. (17 September 2019). "Factchecking Downton Abbey: What the film got wrong about the Royals". The Telegraph.
6. before being commissioned as a [[second lieutenant]] in the [[Grenadier Guards]] on 12 February 1902,{{London Gazette. (11 February 1902)
7. "Kelly's Handbook to the Titled, Landed and Official Classes, 1918". Kelly's.
8. "Kelly's Handbook, 1920". Kelly's.
9. "Kelly's Handbook, 1929". Kelly's.
10. "Kelly's Handbook, 1945". Kelly's.
11. (13 March 1943). "Lord Harewood". Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer.
12. (12 April 1937). "Lord Harewood's Letter". Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer.
13. (November 2011). "A Library and Museum of Freemasonry Information Leaflet: The Use of Standards and Banners in Freemasonry". The Library and Museum of Freemasonry.
14. Basford, Elisabeth. (5 February 2021). "Princess Mary: The First Modern Princess". The History Press.
15. "Orlando".
16. {{London Gazette. (5 February 1937)
17. {{London Gazette. (10 November 1937)
18. "Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, 1949". Burke's Peerage Ltd.
19. "Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, 1910". Burke's Peerage Ltd.