LOWTHER, Sir William, 3rd Bt. (c.1727-56), of Marske, Yorks. and Holker, Lancs.

In 1755 Lowther inherited the rich Whitehaven estates of Sir James Lowther, 4th Bt., and was returned unopposed for Cumberland in his place.

He died 15 Apr. 1756. ‘He was an excellent young man, and did many generous things’, wrote Mrs. Delany to Mrs. Dewes, 20 Apr.Autobiog. (ser. 1), iii. 423-4.—an impression confirmed by Horace Walpole: ‘he did a thousand generous acts’ he wrote to Henry Seymour Conway, 16 Apr.; and to George Montagu, 20 Apr.: ‘[he] has been as generous at his death as he was in his short life; he has left thirteen legacies of five thousand pound each to his friends’. He devised Holker and his other Lancashire estates to his cousin, Lord George Cavendish. His Whitehaven estates were entailed to Sir James Lowther, 5th Bt.