Born five months after his father’s death, Lowther’s upbringing was entrusted to his grandfather until his death in 1675, and thereafter to his cousin Sir John Lowther, 2nd Bt. I*. Lowther’s life was neatly summarized in a memoir dating from the late 1690s by his elder half-brother, who wrote that Lowther
had £100 a year left him by my grandfather . . . besides the £100 a year I gave him, finding him engaged in ill company, I sent him to travel to Rome and over most parts of Germany etc., and when he returned got him chosen a Member of Parliament for Carlisle, all these things to my great expense . . . I saw my brother advantaged by his travels and by the Parliament so as to be well esteemed of, but death carried him off at about 24 years of age with a consumption and thereby his estate returned to me.
He was buried at Lowther on 28 July 1694.2 Owen, 182; Cumbria RO (Carlisle), Lonsdale mss D/Lons/L2/6, f. 14.