The 8th Earl of Lonsdale 1949-2021

 The 8th Earl of Lonsdale, died at the Cumberland Infirmary, Carlisle, 22 June, 2021. He was 72.

The peer was a substantial landowner [the Lonsdale Settled Estates] and his family, the Lowthers  have been the major landowners in Cumbria for a thousand years.  At one stage, they owned 'maybe three-quarters of the county'. The 8th Earl possessed 5,000 acres, on which he had 14 tenant farmers.

Hugh Clayton Lowther was born 27 May, 1949, son of the 7th Earl of Lonsdale [1922-2006], of Askham Hall, Penrith, and the first of his four wives, the former Tuppina Cecily Bennet [died 1984].

He succeeded his father, 23 May, 2006, as 8th Earl [created 1807], Viscount and Baron Lowther, and a Baronet.

Lord Lonsdale married firstly, 2 Oct, 1971 [div 1983/84], Pamela Colleen Middleton, daughter of John Middleton. He married secondly, in 1986, Angela Mary Wyatt, daughter of Capt Peter Wyatt, of Dartmouth, Devon, and married 3rdly, in 1999, Elizabeth Margaret Arnison, daughter of Stanley Frazer Arnison.

The Earl of Lonsdale leaves an adopted son, the Hon Oliver Lowther [born by artificial insemination in 1980, and therefore unable to inherit the peerages and baronetcy], and  the family honours now pass to the 8th Earl's younger half-brother, the Hon William James Lowther, who was born 9 July, 1957.

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