Sir John Lowther, 2nd Baronet, of Whitehaven

Sir John Lowther, 2nd Baronet FRS (9 November 1642 – 17 January 1706) was an English gentleman and landowner at Whitehaven.

He was born at Whitehaven, St Bees, Cumberland, the son of Sir Christopher Lowther, 1st Baronet, and his wife, Frances, daughter of Christopher Lancaster of Stockbridge, Westmoreland and educated at Ilkley, Yorkshire and Balliol College, Oxford (matriculated 1657) ^[1]

He married Jane Leigh, daughter of Woolley and Elizabeth Leigh of Addington, Surrey and had three children:^[2]

• Sir Christopher Lowther, 3rd Baronet (c.1666–1731)
• Jane Lowther (1667 – 27 February 1730)^[3], unmarried
• Sir James Lowther, 4th Baronet (1673–1755)

Lowther owned large coal estates near Whitehaven, and worked to develop the mines and the port. He oversaw the growth of Whitehaven from a small fishing village to a planned town for the colliery workers. He disinherited his elder son, Christopher, as a spendthrift, and left his estates to his younger son, James.^[4]

He served as Member of Parliament for Cumberland from 1665 to 1701, and a Lord Commissioner of the Admiralty from 1689 to 1696.

He died at Whitehaven and was buried at St Bees.

External links

• Portraits of Sir John Lowther, 2nd Bt at the National Portrait Gallery, London

Further reading

• D.R. Hainsworth ed. (1983). The Correspondence of Sir John Lowther of Whitehaven 1693-1698. A provincial community in wartime. London: The British Academy. ISBN 0-197-26016-0. 

References

1. ^ http://www2.royalsociety.org/DServe/dserve.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqCmd=Show.tcl&dsqDb=Persons&dsqSearch=%28Surname=%27lowther%27%29&dsqPos=4
2. ^ "Lowther pedigree 2". http://www.stirnet.com/HTML/genie/british/ll/lowther2.htm. Retrieved 2007-01-02. 
3. ^ Beckett, J.V. (1980). "The Disinheritance of Sir Christopher Lowther in 1701". Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society 80: 131–136. 
4. ^ Beckett, J. V. (2004). "Lowther, Sir James, fourth baronet (bap. 1673, d. 1755)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/37692. Retrieved 2006-12-21. 

• Leigh Rayment's List of Baronets