LOWTHER, Hon. Henry Cecil (1790-1867).

Lowther filled one of his family’s county seats for over 50 years. The opening years of his parliamentary career were, like the remainder, unexceptional. Recalled to the Peninsula for a second period of service after his first session in the House, he urged his father to procure him promotion to a majority in one of the West Indies regiments which he would not have to join as long as he remained in Parliament, but he stayed abroad until 1815.1HMC Lonsdale, 234-44. In the House, in common with all his family, he gave silent support to Liverpool’s administration and opposed Catholic relief. He emerged unscathed from the Westmorland election of 1818, protected by his family and his elder brother, Viscount Lowther, who took care of his promotions and of his attendance in the House.2Lonsdale mss, Lowther to Lonsdale, 16 Oct. 1816, 4 Dec. 1819. Dorothy Wordsworth, whom he visited soon after the election, wrote to her friend Catherine Clarkson (18 Sept.) that although ‘a fine brave fellow’ he was ‘painfully shy ... like a rustic from one of our mountain vales’.3Letters of Wm. and Dorothy Wordsworth, The Middle Years ed. de Selincourt, ii. 823. This shyness and a distaste for public speaking persisted all his life.4J. W. Lowther, A Speaker’s Commentaries, i. 10-11. He died Father of the House, 4 Dec. 1867.