1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Wolverhampton, Henry Hartley Fowler, Viscount

WOLVERHAMPTON, HENRY HARTLEY FOWLER, Viscount (1830-), English statesman, was born at Durham on the 16th of May 1830. He became a prosperous solicitor in Wolverhampton, and coming of a Liberal nonconformist family took a prominent part in politics. In 1880 he was elected Liberal member of parliament for Wolverhampton, and was re-elected for the east division at successive contests. In 1884-1885 he was under-secretary for the Home Office, and in 1886 financial secretary to the treasury. In Mr Gladstone's 1892-1894 ministry he was president of the local government board, and in Lord Rosebery's cabinet, 1894-1895, secretary of state for India. In these and the succeeding years of opposition he was recognized as a sound economist and a sober administrator, as well as a universally respected representative of nonconformist views. In Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's cabinet, 1905-1908, he was chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, and he retained this office in Mr Asquith's ministry, but was transferred to the House of Lords with a viscountcy (April 1908). He retired in 1910. His daughter, Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler, who married Mr A. L. Felkin in 1903, became well known as a novelist with her Concerning Isabel Carnaby (1898) and other books.