The Right Honourable Richard Earl Howe, the veteran of the British Navy, is the second son of Sir Emanuel Scrope, the second lord Viscount Howe, Baron of Clonawly, who was appointed Governor of Barbadoes in May 1732, and Maria-Sophia-Charlotte, eldest daughter to the Baron Kilmanseck, Master of the Horse to George the First, as Elector of Hanover.

Sophia-Charlotte, the Baroness Kilmanseck, of the house of Offlen, was sister to the celebrated Countess of Platen, of the German Empire. On the death of her husband in 1721, she was created Countess of Leinster in the kingdom of Ireland, and afterwards Baroness of Brentford, and Countess of Darlington in England. She was a woman of uncommon beauty. The family of Howe were of distinction in the counties of Somerset, Wilts, and Dorset, for several generations. The Manor of Langar, in the county of Nottingham, came into the possession of the family by the marriage of John Howe, Esq. with Arabella, daughter of the earl of Sunderland; whose eldest son, Sir Scrope, was created a Baron and Viscount, and was succeeded by Scrope, the father of the present Earl Howe, in the year 1712.

His Lordship was born in, or near the year, 1725. He lost his father early in life; who died March 29th, 1735, in Barbadoes, after having been three years governor of that island.