HÒVA, the name originally applied to the middle-class Malayo-Indonesian natives of Madagascar (q.v.), as distinct from the noble class Andrìana and the slave class Andèvo. Hòva has now come to mean the most numerous and powerful of the tribes which form the native population of Madagascar. The Hòva, who occupy the province of Imérina, the central plateau of the island, are of Malayo-Indonesian origin. The period at which the Hòva arrived in Madagascar is still a subject of dispute. Some think that the immigration took place in very early times, before Hinduism reached the Malay Archipelago, since no trace of Sanskrit is found in Malagasy. Others believe that the Hòva did not reach the island until the 12th or 13th century. At the French conquest of Madagascar (1895), the Hòva were the most powerful and, politically, the dominant people; but were far from having subjected the whole of the island to their rule. The Hòva are short and slim, with a complexion of a yellowish olive, many being fairer than the average of southern Europeans. Their hair is long, black and smooth but coarse. Their heads are round, with flat straight foreheads, flat faces, prominent cheekbones, small straight noses, fairly wide nostrils, and small black and slightly oblique eyes. The physical contrast to the negro is usually very obvious, but, especially among the lower classes, there is a tendency to thick lips, kinky hair and dark skin. In many of their customs, such as taboo, infanticide, marriage and funeral rites, they show their Indonesian origin. Most of them now profess Christianity.
HOVE, a municipal borough of Sussex, England, adjoining the watering-place of Brighton on the west, on the London, Brighton, & South Coast railway. Pop. (1901) 36,535. The great seawall of Brighton continues along the front at Hove, forming a pleasant promenade. Here is the Sussex county cricket ground. The municipal borough, incorporated in 1898, includes the parishes of Hove and Aldrington, of which the first is within the parliamentary borough of Brighton, but the second is in the Lewes division of the county. The corporation consists of a mayor, 10 aldermen and 30 councillors. Area, 1521 acres.
HOVENDEN, THOMAS (1840-1895), American artist, was born in Dunmanway, Co. Cork, Ireland, on the 28th of December 1840. He was a pupil of the South Kensington Art Schools and those of the National Academy of Design, New York, whither he had removed in 1863. Subsequently he went to Paris and studied in the École des Beaux Arts under Cabanel, but passed most of his time with the American colony in Brittany, at Pont-Aven, where he painted many pictures of the peasantry. Returning to America in 1880, he became an academician in 1882, and attracted attention by an important canvas of “The Last Moments of John Brown” (now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art). His “Breaking Home Ties,” a picture of American farm life, was engraved with considerable popular success. Hovenden was mortally injured in a heroic effort to save a child from a railroad train in the station at Germantown, near Philadelphia, and died at Norristown, Pennsylvania, on the 14th of August 1895. Among his principal works are:—“News from the Conscript” (1877), “Loyalist Peasant Soldier of La Vendée” (1879). “A Breton Interior,” “Image Seller” and “Jerusalem the Golden” (in the Metropolitan Museum of Art).
HOW, WILLIAM WALSHAM (1823-1897), English divine, son of a Shrewsbury solicitor, was born on the 13th of December 1823, and was educated at Shrewsbury school and Wadham College, Oxford. He was ordained in 1846, and for upwards of thirty years was actively engaged in parish work at Whittington in Shropshire and Oswestry (rural dean, 1860). He refused preferment on several occasions, but his energy and success made him well known, and in 1879 he became a suffragan bishop in London, under the title of bishop of Bedford, his province being the East End. There he became the inspiring influence of a revival of church work. He founded the East London Church Fund, and enlisted a large band of enthusiastic helpers, his popularity among all classes being immense. He was particularly fond of children, and was commonly called “the children’s bishop.” In 1888 he was made bishop of Wakefield, and in the north of England he continued to do valuable work. His sermons were straightforward, earnest and attractive; and besides publishing several volumes of these, he wrote a good deal of verse, including such well-known hymns as “Who is this so weak and helpless,” “Lord, Thy children guide and keep.” In 1863-1868 he brought out a Commentary on the Four Gospels; and he also wrote a Manual for the Holy Communion. In the movement for infusing new spiritual life into the church services, especially among the poor, How was a great force. He died on the 10th of August 1897. He was much helped in his earlier work by his wife. Frances A. Douglas (d. 1887).
See his Life by his son, F. D. How (1898).
HOWARD (Family). Among English families, the house of Howard has long held the first place. Its head, the duke of Norfolk, is the first of the dukes and the hereditary earl marshal of England, while the earls of Suffolk, Carlisle and Effingham and the Lord Howard of Glossop represent in the peerage its younger lines.