Biography of Richard Lowe (1716-1785)
Richard Lowe was the youngest son of Vincent Lowe of Denby and his wife Theodosia, daughter of John Marriott of Alscot, Gloucestershire.
Richard was a woollen draper in King Street, Covent Garden, London, and became one of the leading clothiers to the army. He supplied regiments such as the 1st Regiment of Dragoons and the Marines. In 1771 he co-founded a bank with his partners Raymond, Williams, Vere and Fletcher, which later became Williams Deacon's Bank.
Richard's business interests, investments and money-lending made him extremely wealthy. When he inherited the Denby and Locko estates from his brother John Lowe in 1771, he invested in more land in Derbyshire, and in the coal mines in Denby.
In his will, Richard left his estates to his younger daughter Anne, on condition that she married one of her cousins William, Thomas or John Drury, or one of the sons of Edward Miller Mundy. Anne refused, and the estate passed, after some litigation, to Richard's cousin William Drury of Nottingham.
Family
He was the father of two illegitimate daughters by Eleanor Leyton of Chelsea (later Mrs Aicken):
- Charlotte, m 1784 William Heath
- Anne, m 1789 the Hon. Thomas Fane (d 1807), son of the 9th Earl of Westmorland
Archive Collections
- Title deeds, settlements, estate and legal papers relating to Richard Lowe's ownership of his estates are part of the Drury-Lowe papers held in Manuscripts and Special Collections at the University of Nottingham
- Records relating to Richard Lowe's business interests in the Drury-Lowe collection include correspondence (Dr C 4-7) and papers (Dr E 26-61)