Thomas Howard, 16th Earl of Suffolk

Suffolk was born in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire,[1] the second but eldest surviving son of General John Howard, 15th Earl of Suffolk, and Julia, daughter of John Gaskarth of Hutton Hall, Penrith, Cumberland.

He gained the courtesy title Viscount Andover on the death of his elder brother, Charles Nevinson, who was killed in a hunting accident in January 1800.

In 1820, he succeeded his father in the two united earldoms of Suffolk and Berkshire and entered the House of Lords.

Elizabeth Jane was a double first cousin to Lady Jane Elizabeth Coke, the former wife of Suffolk's late elder brother, Charles Nevinson Howard, Viscount Andover, and thus the niece of agricultural reformer Thomas William Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester and his wife, Jane Dutton.

They had ten children:[6] Lord Suffolk survived his wife by 15 years and died in December 1851, aged 75.