LOWTHER, James (1840-1904), of Bawtry Hall, Doncaster, Yorks.

An enthusiast of the Turf, Lowther followed in his uncle’s footsteps as Conservative MP for York, where he was elected in 1865. He made an impression in the Commons with his opposition to parliamentary reform, whether proposed from the Liberal or Conservative benches. Appointed to office by Disraeli in August 1868 (and again in 1874-80), he never quite lived up to this early promise, but remained in Parliament until his death in 1904, when he was remembered by one parliamentary correspondent as

‘a politician of the good old-fashioned type – loyal to his leaders, faithful to his coadjutors, upright in his dealings with all men, but never subservient, ever ready to form his own conclusions and to act accordingly, and a sportsman to the backbone’.1The Times, 13 Sept. 1904.

Born at Swillington House, near Leeds,2H. Owen, The Lowther family (1990), 372. Lowther, who was usually known as Jim,3A. H. Miles, Cabinet biographies. Our political leaders. Conservative (1885), 51. was ‘a member of one of the most powerful Tory families in the North of England’.4The Times, 10 Dec. 1868. He was a great-nephew of the first earl of Lonsdale, whose family had a long tradition of parliamentary service. Lowther’s father, Charles Hugh (1803-94), did not pursue a political career, having been blind since infancy, but his older brother, John Henry (1793-1868), sat in the pre-Reform Commons, and was subsequently Conservative MP for York, 1835-47.5Owen, Lowther family, 369. John Henry Lowther succeeded to their father’s baronetcy and estates in 1844, and was succeeded in turn by Lowther’s father in 1868.6Lowther’s father owned just over 6,000 acres in the North and West Ridings: J. Bateman, The great landowners of Great Britain and Ireland (4th edn., 1883), 281. Lowther was called to the bar in 1864, but never practised.7R. Lucas, revised by H. C. G. Matthew, ‘Lowther, James’, Oxf. DNB [www.oxforddnb.com]. From ‘a sporting and hunting stock, inseparably connected with the land in Cumberland and Yorkshire’, he took a particular interest in breeding and racing horses, but did not bet, which was said to be ‘one of the secrets of his popularity’.8Miles, Cabinet biographies, 51-2.

Lowther entered the Commons ‘at an early age’, securing election for York aged 24.9The Times, 13 Sept. 1904. He was selected as a candidate in March 1865, after the sitting Conservative MP announced that he would retire at the dissolution.10The Standard, 1 Apr. 1865. The presence of his uncle, Sir John Henry Lowther, at his first meeting in York reinforced Lowther’s emphasis on his family ties with the constituency. He courted local support on this occasion by complaining that York’s interests ‘had been flagrantly trampled upon’ by Palmerston’s ministry, particularly in moving the assizes from York to Leeds. As ‘a warm adherent’ of the Church of England, he promised to vote against the abolition of church rates, citing the importance of providing places of worship for the poor. He attacked backbench efforts to use parliamentary reform as a ‘cry’, believing that the question should be left to the government to tackle with a comprehensive scheme, and condemned the ballot as ‘thoroughly unEnglish’.11York Herald, 8 Apr. 1865. His election address, issued in June, largely reaffirmed these views, explaining that ‘I am a Conservative, so far as I understand the term to mean one who is determined to maintain that which is worth upholding, as opposed to the wild Democrat, who would reduce our glorious Constitution to the level of American institutions’. Yet he was ‘no advocate for a stand-still policy, or a retention of acknowledged abuses’, stating his support for social and legal reforms, improvements to working-class housing, and the promotion of education ‘especially when based on religious truth’. His address modified his stance on church rates, still opposing their unconditional abolition, but being prepared to vote for a scheme which would provide for the maintenance of the church fabric while relieving conscientious Dissenters. It also stated his support for reductions in taxation, economy in public expenditure without ‘tampering with the efficiency of our Army and Navy’ and a non-interventionist foreign policy.12York Herald, 1 July 1865.

Lowther’s election speeches proved the truth of his admission that ‘he could not bring age, experience, or oratory into their service’.13York Herald, 8 Apr. 1865. At an election meeting in July he floundered once he had got through his prepared speech, which he ‘recited with glibness and rapidity’.14York Herald, 8 July 1865. On the hustings, where he made clear his opposition to a £6 borough franchise, which would swamp ‘the intelligence of the constituency by the mere force of numbers’, but stated his willingness to enfranchise ‘the prudent and provident portion of the working classes’,15Leeds Mercury, 12 July 1865. he relied on prompts from a supporter when he faltered. Noticing this, the crowd ‘began to assail the party with banter as to the incapacity of their candidate’, until Lowther’s uncle advised him to stop speaking.16York Herald, 15 July 1865. His lacklustre oratory did not prevent Lowther, the lone Conservative candidate, topping the poll. His success at York has been ascribed in part to his ability to appeal to ‘civic ideologies of independence’ and a defence of local privileges, such as the rights of the freemen.17M. Roberts, ‘Currents of electoral independence: James Lowther and popular politics in York, c. 1865-1880’, Yorkshire Archaelogical Journal, 78 (2006), 217-40. He was a dutiful patron of local institutions ranging from the York amateur rowing club to the York rifle volunteers, but caused some ill feeling in 1867 when he declined to subscribe £100 to the York Working Men’s Paris Excursion Club, because he believed its committee was biased towards the Liberals.18York Herald, 27 Jan. 1866, 2 Mar. 1867, 21 Sept. 1867.

Lowther’s ‘early reputation’ in the Commons was ‘more social than political’, and he ‘distinguished himself as one of the most zealous and vigorous applauders of his own side, and a most severe critic and foe of the Liberals, so far as that could be evinced by cries and expressions of dissent’.19Miles, Cabinet biographies, 51. He was on the foundation committee of the Junior Carlton Club.20Survey of London (1960), xxix & xxx. 339-45. He joined his party in the division lobbies to vote against the abolition of church rates, 7 Mar. 1866. He broke his parliamentary silence with what was variously described as a ‘very clever’, ‘humorous’ and ‘boyishly violent’ speech in opposition to the Liberal ministry’s reform bill, 16 Apr. 1866.21Belfast News-Letter, 17 Apr. 1866; Dundee Courier, 17 Apr. 1866; Leeds Mercury, 27 Mar. 1867. Contrary to his early efforts on the hustings, he acquired a reputation as ‘a forcible and fluent speaker, if neither a brilliant nor a graceful one’.22The Times, 13 Sept. 1904. Speaking in support of Grosvenor’s amendment that redistribution must be considered alongside the franchise, Lowther condemned the government’s bill as ‘a measure prepared without thought, introduced without argument, supported by menace, and now sought to be forced on a reluctant Parliament and an unwilling nation’. He made only a handful of other contributions that session, taking a particular interest in the question of the procedure to be followed by returning officers when two candidates received an equal number of votes, 24 May, 18 and 26 July 1866.

His reservations about reform were confirmed by Lowther’s response to the Conservative ministry’s bill. While four-fifths of those who attended a meeting of Conservative backbenchers, 28 Feb. 1867, were prepared to support household suffrage, albeit with safeguards such as personal payment of rates, Lowther was in the smaller group who advocated a £6 borough franchise.23F. B. Smith, The making of the second reform bill (1966), 159. Lowther’s views were shared by George Bentinck and Alexander Beresford Hope. He warned in the Commons, 25 Mar. 1867, in a speech delivered with an ‘easy flow’, that the safeguards intended to prevent the franchise resting ‘on a basis of pure and simple household suffrage’, such as dual voting, personal payment of rates and fancy franchises, would – even if accepted by the House – prove insufficient, and declared that the bill ‘would be found to be not a Conservative measure, and that it would end in giving undue preponderance to one class’, which would lead to ‘the utter annihilation’ of his party.24Sheffield Independent, 30 Mar. 1867. However, although Lowther was among those Conservatives who considered dividing against the bill at various points,25M. Cowling, 1867. Disraeli, Gladstone and revolution (1967), 176-7. he voted with Disraeli in the critical division on the personal payment of rates, 12 Apr. 1867, along with other ‘confirmed Dizzy-haters’, who nonetheless ‘could not bring themselves to vote with Gladstone’.26Smith, Making of the second reform bill, 183. Lowther divided for a two year residence requirement, 2 May, and opposed the enfranchisement of lodgers, 13 May, and £5 copyholders, 20 May. Despite his vote of 12 April, he was still prepared to oppose Disraeli, being one of 70 Conservatives to vote for Laing’s amendment to remove one seat from boroughs of under 10,000 inhabitants, 31 May, and voting against a third member for boroughs exceeding 250,000 inhabitants, 1 July 1867.27Morning Post, 3 June 1867. He divided for Lowe’s cumulative voting clause, 5 July, and the minority clause, 8 Aug. 1867.

Lowther made further speeches on the details of the reform bill. He took a particular interest in the question of whether individuals occupying college rooms in Oxford and Cambridge should be able to vote in those boroughs. (This had been prohibited by the 1832 Reform Act on the grounds that the universities had their own MPs.) His first attempt to prevent a similar prohibition being added to the 1867 measure was defeated by 200 votes to 179, 24 June 1867. Feeling it unfair that these individuals should be denied their ‘local representation’ alongside their ‘academical representation’, he revisited the issue, 12 July 1867, when he successfully reversed the previous decision, by 145 votes to 84. The Lords’ amendments to the bill went a step further, defining the lodger franchise so as to include college rooms, an amendment which was rejected by the Commons, despite Lowther’s speech in its support, 8 Aug. 1867. Lowther again found himself at odds with the Conservative leadership over the Scotch reform bill, 25 May 1868, when he complained about Scotland’s over-representation at the expense of England, but was countered by Disraeli. He criticised proposals to divide Glasgow into three wards, hoping that they would ‘hear no more of novel experiments’, 28 May 1868. Lowther also made several contributions on the details of the election petitions and corrupt practices at elections bill, but his proposal that the costs of holding election trials (such as judges’ expenses) should be borne by the constituency involved, rather than the national purse, was defeated by 134 votes to 67, 14 July 1868. Equally unsuccessful were his attempts to make it a misdemeanour for any agent found guilty of bribery to take employment as an agent or canvasser, 17 and 23 July 1868. Alongside parliamentary reform, Lowther took an interest in the public schools bill, particularly its effects on Westminster school, where he had been a pupil, 16 and 23 June 1868. He joined a deputation from Cambridge University members to the archbishop of Canterbury against the abolition of religious tests at universities.28The Standard, 11 May 1868.

Lowther was not particularly active in the committee rooms, serving on private bill committees and the committee on the metropolitan foreign cattle market bill.29PP 1866 (0.108), lvi. 593; PP 1867 (0.143), lvi. 29; PP 1867-8 (227), xii. 2; PP 1867-68 (261), xii. 354; PP 1867-68 (303), xii. 480. The latter measure prompted his final contribution to debate in this Parliament, 25 July 1868, when he complained of the unnecessary verbiage of his fellow MPs, jocularly suggesting that ‘if the Chancellor of the Exchequer could levy a sum of one or two sovereigns upon every hon. Member who repeated his arguments, as had been done during the discussion of this Bill, he would soon have sufficient funds for the construction of the market’. Despite his independent line on parliamentary reform, Lowther was appointed to office by Disraeli in August 1868, succeeding Sir Michael Hicks Beach as parliamentary secretary to the poor law board.30The Standard, 20 Aug. 1868. Disraeli wrote to Lord Stanley, 16 Aug. 1868, that ‘Jim Lowther is to have his place on the Poor Law Board which he will represent in the Commons. Thus we get the young ones who promise into the firm and they will sit on the front bench wherever that may be’.31Cited in Owen, Lowther family, 372.

Lowther was re-elected at York in 1868, when he again topped the poll after making a staunch defence of the Irish church, having voted against Gladstone’s resolutions, 3 Apr. 1868.32York Herald, 26 Sept. 1868. He was ‘one of the most vigorous and unsparing critics’ of Gladstone’s first ministry. Re-elected at York in 1874, he served as under-secretary for the colonies, 1874-8, but did not show ‘any great mastery of Colonial affairs’. He was an unexpected choice as chief secretary for Ireland, 1878-80, and The Times considered his acceptance of this post ‘the great mistake of his career’, as ‘his temper was not conciliatory’ and his knowledge of Irish affairs ‘was superficial’.33The Times, 13 Sept. 1904. He never held office thereafter. Ousted from his York seat in 1880, he was defeated at a by-election at Cumberland East in February 1881, but returned to the Commons as MP for North Lincolnshire in September 1881.34Lowther’s Oxf. DNB entry incorrectly states that he was defeated at North Lincolnshire in September 1881. He unsuccessfully contested the Louth division of Lincolnshire in 1885 and the Eskdale division of Cumberland in 1886, before securing a seat in June 1888 for the Isle of Thanet division of Kent, which he represented ‘as a rare survival of old-fashioned toryism’ for the next sixteen years.35Lucas, ‘Lowther, James’. He also served as an alderman on the North Riding county council from 1889 until his death.36York Herald, 8 Feb. 1889.

Alongside his political career, Lowther took ‘the keenest possible interest in the welfare and good repute of the Turf’,37The Times, 13 Sept. 1904. and kept his own racing stable from 1873.38The Record of Old Westminsters (1927), ii. 596. He was ‘a very popular figure at Newmarket’, and acted as a steward of the Jockey Club from 1880.39The Times, 13 Sept. 1904. As the senior trustee to the estates of his cousins, the earls of Lonsdale, he showed ‘tact and skill’ in exercising control over the spendthrift 5^th earl, Hugh Cecil Lowther, who succeeded in 1882.40Owen, Lowther family, 373. A character sketch of Lowther in 1885 described him as ‘fond of fun, a first-rate story-teller, the life of the social table’, but also hard-working and well-informed, being ‘no more at a loss for a fact than an opinion’. He had a ‘strong, clear voice’ and ‘his eyes twinkle[d] on occasion with mischief, lighted up by intelligence’.41Miles, Cabinet biographies, 52, 54. ‘Thorough, hard-headed, courteous, and genial’,42Ibid., 54. he remained ‘a social favourite with his colleagues’ in the Commons throughout his long parliamentary career, despite a reputation for plain-speaking.43The Times, 13 Sept. 1904.

In February 1904 Lowther announced that he would not seek re-election at the dissolution.44The Times, 26 Feb. 1904. Having been seriously ill for some time he died that September at Wilton Castle, near Redcar, which he had inherited on his father’s death in 1894.45The Times, 13 Sept. 1904; Lucas, ‘Lowther, James’. He had also inherited his father’s London houses and his effects in the North Riding: The Standard, 23 Jan. 1895. Lowther’s father lived at Wilton Castle until 1868 when he succeeded to the family baronetcy, after which it became Lowther’s residence: Owen, Lowther family, 370. He was cremated at Darlington and his ashes were placed in Wilton churchyard.46Lucas, ‘Lowther, James’. He left effects valued at £91,698 1s. 11d.47National Probate Calendar, 12 September 1904. Wilton Castle passed to his nephew John George Lowther (1885-1977), younger son of Lowther’s elder brother George William Lowther (1837-90).48Lucas, ‘Lowther, James’. His correspondence from 1878-80 with John Winston Spencer Churchill, 7th duke of Marlborough, the Irish viceroy, is held by Cambridge University Library.49Cambridge University Library, MS Add. 9271, fols. 150-81. Some material relating to his estates is held by the Cumbria Archive Centre in Carlisle and Barrow.