Lowe, Robert, Viscount Sherbrooke

(1811-1892)

   Born in Bingham, Nottinghamshire, the son of a clergyman, he was educated at Winchester College and graduated M.A. from University College, Oxford, in 1836. He was for several years tutor at Oxford before being called to the bar in 1842. He then emigrated to Australia, where he played an active role in politics as the elected representative for the district of St. Vincent, Sydney. His opposition to tens of thousands of acres being in the hands of a few isolated squatters and his opposition to the renewal of convict transportation to the Australian colonies are recorded in Fifty Years in the Making of Australian History by Sir Henry Parkes (1892). On his return to England in 1850, he was leader writer for The Times and entered Parliament two years later, where he distinguished himself as a speaker in the Reform debates of 1866-1867. He was chancellor of the exchequer, 1868-1873, and home secretary, 1873-1874, in William Gladstone's first administration (1868-1874). He was created Viscount Sherbrooke in 1880. His opposition to the squatters is expressed in his poem "Songs of the Squatters."

   Sources: Song of the Squatters, Robert Lowe. Australian Bush Ballads (http://www.geocities.com/yorligau/poems.htm\#sots). Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, 2006. The National Portrait Gallery (www.npg.org.uk). Poetry in Australia, Vol. I: From the Ballads to Brennan. T. Inglis Moore, ed. University of California Press, 1965. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The New Oxford Book of Australian Verse. Les A. Murray, ed. Oxford University Press, 1991 (enlarged edition). University of Sydney Library, Fifty Years in the Making of Australian History (http://setis.library.usyd.edu.au/ozlit/pdf/fed0024.pdf ).