Background
Montagu William Lowry-Corry was born on October 8, 1838 in London, England. He was the second son of the Right Hon. Henry Corry by his wife Harriet, daughter of the 6th earl of Shaftesbury.
Montagu William Lowry-Corry was born on October 8, 1838 in London, England. He was the second son of the Right Hon. Henry Corry by his wife Harriet, daughter of the 6th earl of Shaftesbury.
He was educated at Harrow and at Trinity College, Cambridge, and called to the bar in 1863.
His father, a son of the 2nd earl of Belmore, represented County Tyrone in parliament continuously for forty- seven years (1826 - 73), and was a member of Lord Derby's cabinet (1866 - 68) as vice-president of the council and afterwards as first lord of the Admiralty. Montague Corry was thus brought up in close touch with Conservative party politics; but it is said to have been his winning personality and social accomplishments rather than his political connexions that recommended him to the favourable notice of Disraeli, who in 1866 made Corry his private secretary. From this time till the statesman's death in 1881 Corry maintained his connexion with Disraeli, the relations between the two men being more intimate and confidential than usually subsist between a private secretary and his political chief. When Disraeli resigned office in 1868 Corry declined various offers of public employment in order to be free to continue his services, now given gratuitously, to the Conservative leader; and when the latter returned to power in 1874, Corry resumed his position as official private secretary to the prime minister. He accompanied Disraeli (then earl of Beaconsfield) to the congress of Berlin in 1878, where he acted as one of the secretaries of the special embassy of Great Britain. On the defeat of the Conservatives in 1880, Corry was raised to the peerage with the title of Baron Rowton, of Rowton Castle, Shropshire. He had rendered service of an exceptional order to his chief, and after Beaconsfield's removal to the House of Lords his private secretary became invaluable in keeping him in touch with the rank and file of his party. Lord Rowton was in Algiers when Beaconsfield was stricken with his last illness in the spring of 1881; but returning post-haste across Europe, he was present at the death-bed of his old chief. Beaconsfield (q. v. ) bequeathed to Rowton all his correspondence and other papers. Lord Rowton will long be remembered as the originator of the scheme known as the Rowton Houses. Consulted by Sir William Borne or Bird engaged to play with the Admiral's Men for three years from 1597. In 1600 he borrowed 306. from Henslowe to pay for a new play, Jugurth, by W. Boyle (probably another name for himself). He helped S. Rowley in Joshua (1601), and in additions (1602) to Marlowe's Dr Faustus.
Lord Rowton never married.
