The Right Honourable The Viscount Ullswater LVO PC
Official portrait, 2019
Minister of State for Housing
In office 20 July 1994 – 6 July 1995
Prime Minister	John Major
Preceded by	George Young
Succeeded by	Robert Jones
Chief Whip of the House of Lords Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms
In office 16 September 1993 – 20 July 1994
Prime Minister	John Major
Preceded by	The Lord Hesketh
Succeeded by	The Lord Strathclyde
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Employment
In office 24 July 1990 – 16 September 1993
Prime Minister	Margaret Thatcher John Major
Preceded by	The Lord Strathclyde
Succeeded by	The Lord Henley
Lord-in-waiting Government Whip
In office 26 July 1989 – 22 July 1990
Prime Minister	Margaret Thatcher
Preceded by	The Lord Henley
Succeeded by	The Lord Reay
Member of theHouse of Lords
Lord Temporal
Hereditary peerage 27 March 1949 – 11 November 1999
Preceded by	The 1st Viscount Ullswater
Succeeded by	Seat abolished
Elected Hereditary Peer 25 March 2003 – 20 July 2022
By-election	25 March 2003
Preceded by	The 13th Viscount of Oxfuird
Succeeded by	The 4th Baron Roborough
Personal details
Born	(1942-01-09)9 January 1942 (age 84)
Party	Conservative
Alma mater	Trinity College, Cambridge

Nicholas James Christopher Lowther, 2nd Viscount Ullswater (born 9 January 1942), is a Britishhereditary peer and former member of theHouse of Lords who sat as aConservative. He succeeded his great-grandfather in the viscountcy of Ullswater in 1949, being one of very few peers to have succeeded a great-grandfather in a title.

He served as a whip and a minister under Margaret Thatcher and John Major between 1989 and 1995 culminating in serving as theMinister of State for Housing from 1994 to 1995.

Lowther was the son of John Lowther (1910–1942) and Priscilla Lambert (1917–1945). His father was secretary toHRH The Duke of Kent, who served as best man at their 1937 wedding.^[1] His father died alongside the Duke in theDunbeath air crash.

Lowther was educated atEton College andTrinity College, Cambridge.

Lowther was made aLord-in-waiting (whip) in January 1989 byMargaret Thatcher before becomingParliamentary Under Secretary of State at theDepartment of Employment in July 1990. He was retained byJohn Major in that role until 1993, when he becameCaptain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen at Arms (Government Chief Whip in the House of Lords). He remained in this role for a year. He becameMinister of State for Housing at theDepartment of the Environment (as well as aPrivy Counsellor) in 1994, but left the Government in a 1995 reshuffle.

In 1998, he was appointed Private Secretary toPrincess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon, and continued in this office until her death in 2002. He was appointed Lieutenant of theRoyal Victorian Order in thespecial Honours List issued by the Queen after the Princess's death.

As a member of aRoyal Household he could not take part in partisan politics and did not seek to remain in theHouse of Lords when theHouse of Lords Act 1999 was passed. But after the death of theViscount of Oxfuird in January 2003, he won the all-house by-election, enabling him to return to the House of Lords.^[2]

On 22 May 2006, Lord Ullswater was nominated for the newly created post ofLord Speaker, and in the election held on 28 June 2006 emerged in third place out of nine candidates. He served as one of the Deputy Speakers in the Lords until May 2020; from June 2020 until May 2021, he served as Deputy Chairman of Committees.^[3] His great-grandfather,James Lowther, served asSpeaker of the House of Commons 1905–1921.

Ullswater retired from the House of Lords on 20 July 2022.^[4]

Lord Ullswater is the Chairman of Lonsdale Settled Estates Ltd and a Director of Lowther Trustees Limited, both companies that manage the family landholdings in Cumbria.^[5]

Coat of arms of Nicholas Lowther, 2nd Viscount Ullswater

Crest A dragon passant Argent. Escutcheon Or six annulets three two and one and in chief a crescent for difference all Sable. Supporters On either side a horse Argent gorged with a wreath of laurel Vert and charged on the shoulder with a portcullis chained Or. Motto Magistratum Indicat Virum (The Office Shows The Man)[6]

Lord Ullswater was an amateur jockey in his youth.

In 1967, he married Susan Weatherby. The couple has two sons and two daughters:

• Hon. Emma Mary Lowther, (born 1968)
• Hon. Clare Priscilla Lowther, (born 1970)
• Hon. Benjamin James Lowther (born 1975)
• Hon. Edward John Lowther (born 1981)

The family lives atDocking in Norfolk.

• Leigh Rayment's Peerage Pages^{[self-published source][better source needed]}
• "Keele University Political Science Resources". Archived fromthe original on 10 March 2007. Retrieved7 July 2007.
• "Lord Speaker election". Archived fromthe original on 18 March 2007. Retrieved7 July 2007.

• 1942 births
• Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge
• People educated at Eton College
• Conservative Party (UK) Baronesses- and Lords-in-Waiting
• Honourable Corps of Gentlemen at Arms
• Lieutenants of the Royal Victorian Order
• Living people
• Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom
• People educated at West Downs School
• Viscounts in the Peerage of the United Kingdom
• Lowther family
• Hereditary peers elected under the House of Lords Act 1999
• Hereditary peers removed under the House of Lords Act 1999
• Peers retired under the House of Lords Reform Act 2014

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