Montagu William Lowry-Corry, 1st Baron Rowton Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order, Central Bank, Personal Computer, Doctor of Laws, also known as "Monty," was a British philanthropist and public servant, best known for serving as Benjamin Disraeli"s private secretary from 1866 until the latter"s death in 1881.
Background
Born in Grosvenor Square, London, Lowry-Corry was the second son of the Honourable Henry Lowry-Corry by his wife Lady Harriet, daughter of Cropley Ashley-Cooper, 6th Earl of Shaftesbury. Lowry-Corry"s father, a younger son of Somerset Lowry-Corry, 2nd Earl Belmore, represented County Tyrone in parliament continuously for forty-seven years (1826–1873), and was a member of Lord Derby"s second cabinet (1866–1868) as Vice President of the Council and afterwards as First Lord of the Admiralty.
Education
He was educated at Harrow and at Trinity College, Cambridge, and was called to the Bar in 1863.
Career
He practised for three years on the Oxford Circuit. From this time till the statesman"s death in 1881 Corry maintained his connection 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 Lowry-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 (who in 1876 had been ennobled as 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. In the latter year he was awarded the Central Bank, in the Civil Division.
He was a Doctor of Laws and Justice of the Peace for the same county. 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 bequeathed to Rowton all his correspondence and other papers. In 1897 he was made Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order and in 1900 he was sworn of the Privy Council. Lord Rowton is also well-remembered as a philanthropist as the originator of the Rowton Houses, six large hostels for working men which were much better than existing lodging houses.
He was inspired by projects of that kind founded by the Earl of Iveagh in Dublin and at the time of his death was chairman of both the Rowton Houses Company and the Guinness Trust.