Nicholas Lowther, 2nd Viscount Ullswater

Lowther was the son of John Lowther (1910-1942), and Priscilla Lambert (1917-1945). His father was secretary to HRH The Duke of Kent, and died alongside the Duke in the Dunbeath air crash. He was educated at Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge.

Lowther was made a Lord-in-waiting (whip) in January 1989 by Margaret Thatcher before becoming Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department of Employment in July 1990. He was retained by John Major in that role until 1993, when he became Captain 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 became Minister of State for Housing at the Department of the Environment (as well as a Privy Counsellor) in 1994, but left the Government in a 1995 reshuffle.

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

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

On 22 May 2006, Lord Ullswater was nominated for the newly created post of Lord Speaker, and in the election held on 28 June 2006 emerged in third place out of nine candidates. His great-grandfather, James Lowther, served as Speaker of the House of Commons 1905–1921.

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

The family lives at Docking in Norfolk.

• Leigh Rayment's Peerage Pages
• "Keele University Political Science Resources". Retrieved 7 July 2007.
• "Lord Speaker election". Archived from the original on 18 March 2007. Retrieved 7 July 2007.