Robert Lowe, Viscount Sherbrooke

Robert Lowe, Viscount Sherbrooke (born Dec. 4, 1811, Bingham, Nottinghamshire, Eng.—died July 27, 1892, Warlingham, Surrey) was a British Liberal Party politician whose effective opposition to the Liberals’ electoral Reform Bill of 1866 made it possible for the Conservatives to sponsor and take credit for the Reform Act of 1867. Despite his leadership of the renegade Liberals known as the Adullamites, he served as chancellor of the Exchequer (1868–73) and home secretary (1873–74) in the first ministry of the Liberal prime minister William Ewart Gladstone.

After teaching at the University of Oxford, Lowe was called to the bar (1842) and emigrated to Sydney, Australia, where he became prominent as a lawyer and as a member of the state legislative council (1843–50). He then returned to London, where he began writing editorials for The Times and sat in the House of Commons (1852–80). In the offices of joint secretary of the Board of Control for India (1852–55), vice president of the Board of Trade (1855–58), and vice president of the Committee of Council for Education (1859–64), he helped to establish competitive entry to the Indian civil service, secured statutory recognition of the principle of limited liability for investors in joint-stock companies (1856–57), and introduced the payment by results system of grants to schools contingent on the success of pupils in national examinations (1862; abolished 1904).

Disbelieving in democracy, Lowe thought that suffrage should depend on informed intelligence—in practice, on educational attainments. His defeat of the Reform Bill of 1866 caused the fall of Lord Russell’s Liberal government. The Reform Act of 1867, which Lowe also opposed, was drafted by Benjamin Disraeli (afterward 1st Earl of Beaconsfield and twice prime minister), who was at that time chancellor of the Exchequer in Lord Derby’s Conservative government. While serving under Gladstone, Lowe capably administered the Treasury and supported the prime minister’s reforms, but his abilities were offset by his lack of tact. He was created viscount in 1880. He had no children by either of his two marriages, and the viscountcy became extinct upon his death.