Robert Lowe - Education and Australia

Education and Australia

Lowe was born in Bingham, Nottinghamshire, England, the second son of the Reverend Robert Lowe (rector of Bingham). His mother was Ellen, the daughter of the Rev. Reginald Pyndar. Lowe was an albino, and his sight was so weak that initially it was thought he was unfit to be sent to school. In 1822 he went to a school at Southwell, then to one at Risley, and in 1825 to Winchester as a commoner. In Lowe's fragment of autobiography he shows an unpleasing picture of the under-feeding and other conditions of the school life of the time. The languages of Latin and Greek were the main subjects of study and Lowe records that both were easy for him. Lowe then attended University College, Oxford and enjoyed the change; there he gained a first class degree in Classics and a second class in Mathematics, besides taking a leading part in the Union debates. In 1835 he won a fellowship at Magdalen, but vacated it on marrying, on 26 March 1836, Georgiana Orred (d. 1884). Lowe was for a few years a successful tutor at Oxford, but in 1838 was disappointed at not being elected to the professorship of Greek at the University of Glasgow.

In 1841 Lowe moved to London to read for the Bar, but his eyesight showed signs of serious weakness, and, acting on medical advice, sailed to Sydney in the colony of New South Wales, where he set to work in the law courts. In 1843 he was nominated by Sir George Gipps, the Governor of New South Wales, to a seat in the New South Wales Legislative Council; owing to a difference with Gipps he resigned his seat, but was elected shortly afterwards for Sydney. Lowe soon made his mark in the political world by his clever speeches, particularly on finance and education; and besides obtaining a large legal practice, he was one of the principal writers for the Atlas newspaper. In 1850 he went back to England, to enter political life there.