Lowther MPs in the Era of Aristocratic Decline, 1880–1922: 'Rebellious and Rootless'?

An aspect of David Cannadine's portrait of British aristocratic decline after 1880 is the way in which increasingly erratic parliamentary behaviour reflected a loss of political confidence and direction. The political impact of MPs from the Lowther family had over six centuries been more limited than their numbers might suggest. After 1882 their fragmentation was further encouraged by the extravagant and increasingly apolitical eccentricity of the fifth Earl. However, some of the last Lowthers were untypically prominent in the House, though — despite their shared Conservatism — in uncoordinated and often idiosyncratic ways. It is tempting to see the permanent disappearance of Lowthers from the Commons following the fall of the Coalition in 1922 as a function of aristocratic crisis, but the evidence points rather to coincidental personal factors.