William Drury Lowe
Quick Facts
Biography
William Drury-Lowe (1802–1877) was an English landowner who inherited the Locko Park lands and became a High Sheriff of Derbyshire.
Biography
William Drury Holden was born in 1802 eldest son of Robert Holden of Darley Abbey and, through his wife née Mary-Anne Drury-Lowe, of Denby and Locko Park. He completed his education with a bachelor of arts from Christ Church, Oxford.
On the death of his grandmother Anne Drury-Lowe in 1849 William Drury Holden changed his surname to Drury-Lowe having inherited the lands and arms associated with the Locko Park estate near Spondon in Derbyshire, although this was not formally confirmed until 1853.
After his marriage in 1827 to Caroline Esther Curzon daughter of Lord Scarsdale they lived at Aston Lodge in Aston-on-Trent for a while before he took up the challenge of running the estate near Kimbolton in Bedfordshire. They took their three sons to Italy in 1839 and returned to England in 1843.
In the 1850s, the Drury-Lowes lived abroad whilst extensive building work took place at Locko Park.
The building work included a picture gallery for the paintings they had obtained whilst in Italy. The tower in the Italian style again reminded them of the country where their daughter Florence had been born in 1843. He had returned from France in time to be the High Sheriff of Derbyshire for 1854.
In 1858, his eldest son William had married without his father's approval and they had been estranged. Luckily the two put aside their disagreements before Drury-Lowe died in 1877 when Drury-Lowe married his second wife, Lady Lucy Needham, in 1876.