Lowe, Hudson (DNB00)
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LOWE, Sir HUDSON (1769-1844), lieutenant-general, governor of St. Helena, from 1815 to 1821, bom 28 July 1769), was son of Hudson Lowe, army surgeon, and his wife, the daughter of J. Morgan of Galway, Ireland. The elder Lowe, whose christian name is given as John in early Army Lists, was of a Lincolnshire family long settled near Grantham, and is believed to have been brother or nephew and heir of George Lowe, master-gardener to George II (Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. viii. 28). He was for over thirty years surgeon of the 50th foot, now the 1st royal West Kent regiment, and after wards, as staff surgeon-major and assistant inspector of hospitals, was head of the medical department at Gibraltar, where he died in 1801. Young Hudson Lowe was born while his father was with his regiment in the town of Galway, and went out with the regiment to the West Indies and America. After its return home, during the early part of the American war, he was at school at Salisbury. He became an ensign in the East Devon (afterwards the 1st Devon) militin, and passed in review with that corps before he was twelve years old. He served as a volunteer with the 50th foot at Gibraltar in 1785-76, was gazetted ensign in it on 25 Sept. 1787, and became lieutenant in the regiment on 11 Nov, 1791. and captain 25 Sept. 1795. He was stationed for some years at Gibraltar, and travelled on leave through Italy, picking up an intimate knowledge of Italian and French. Rejoining his regiment at Gibraltar on the breaking out of the war, he served with it at Toulon and at the reduction of Corsica, including the sieges of Bastia and Calvi. Afterwards he was two years in garrison at Ajaocio, but knew nothing of the Bonaparte family, in whose mansion one of his brother-officers was assigned quarters (FORSYTH, i.87). From Corsica he went with the 50th to Elba, where he was deputy judge-advocate, and thence to Portugal, where he was stationed two years, and acquired proficiency in the language. He had previously obtained a good knowledge of Spanish. From Lisbon be went in 1799 to Minorca, where he was made one of the inspectors of foreign
was bound to defend his character as a public servant whose conduct it had approved.
In 1823 Lowe was appointed governor of Antigua, but resigned on domesyic grounds. He was afterwards appointed to the staff in Ceylon as second in command under Sir Edward Barnes [q. v.] Leaving his family in Paris, he set out late in 1825, and remained in Ceylon until 1828, when the animadversions suggested in the last volume of Sir Walter Scott's 'Life of Napoleon' brought him home on leave. He met with a spontaneous and hearty welcome at St. Helena on the way. His return gave much offence in official quarters, as the reasons were deemed inadequate. His appeals to Lord Bathurst and the Duke of Wellington led to no result, and by the advice of Wellington he went back to Ceylon, looking forward to succeed to the chief command. His appointment was vacated by his promotion to lieutenant-general in 1830, the opposite party came into power, Ceylon received a new governor, and Lowe's hopes of further preferment or pension were never fulfilled. He returned to England in 1831, and from that time until his death was engaged incessantly in memorialising the government in respect of his claims. Letters after letters, in the composition of which he was endlessly fastidious, were forwarded to the colonial office year by year without result. He was gratified by his transfer, in 1842, to the colonelcy of his old corps, the 50th, and his advancement in the same year to the highest class of the Prussian order of the Red Eagle, which was notified in a highly flattering letter from Baron von Bulow, recalling his 'signal services to the common cause in the glorious campaigns of 1813-14.' He was also made a G.C.M.G. On leaving St. Helena, Lowe was fairly rich, having 20,000l. in the funds, and much valuable property, including a fine and extensive library; but before his death the heavy expenses in which he had been involved had left him, save for his military emoluments, a poor man. Lowe died at Charlotte Cottage, near Sloane Street, Chelsea, of paralyxis, on 10 Jan. 1844. aged 75.
Lowe married in London on 16 Dec. 1816, Mrs. Susan Johnson, a bright agreeable woman of thirty-five, daughter of Stephen de Lancey, sister of Sir William Howe de Lancey, and widow of Colonel William Johnson. By her first husband she had two daughters, the survivor of whom married Count Balmain, the Russian commissioner at St. Helena during Napoleon's Captivity. By her marriage with Lowe she had two sons and a daughter, all born in St. Helena. The younger son, Edward William Howe de Lancey Lowe, is separately noticed. The daughter was recommended for a small pension by Sir Robert Peel on her father's death. Lady Lowe died in Hertford Street, Mayfair, London, on 22 Aug. 1832.
Lowe was a light-built, fair-haired man, rather below the middle size. He had a quick, restless manner, but was never fluent of speech, even under excitement. The only good portrait of him is said to be that by Wyvile, taken about 1832, and engraved in Forsyth's book.
Lowe's papers were entrusted to the late Sir Harris Nicolas to prepare for publication, but the arrangement was abandoned after many delays arising out of the mass of documents to be dealt with. Subsequently they were placed by the publisher of the 'Quarterly Review' in the hands of the late William Forsyth, M.A., by whom the leading facts were embodied in his 'Captivity of Napoleon at St. Helena, from the Letters and Journals of Sir Hudson Lowe,' London. 1853, 3 vols. The 'Lowe Papers,' part of which supplied the materials for Forsyth's book, and which comprise copies of Lowe's entire official correspondence from 1793 to 1837, together with a mass of notes and memoranda necessary to a right understanding of affairs at St. Helena under Lowe's government, including copies of O'Mearn's original letters to his friend Mr. Finlaison, taken at the admiralty, are now in the British Museum, forming Addit. MSS. 20107-240 (period l793-1827) and 29543 (extra 1804-15). Another volume of letters from and to Lowe forms Addit. MS. 15729.
[Army Lists and London Gazettes; Memoir of Lowe in Colburn's United Service Magazine, April-June 1844; Bunbury's Narrative of Passages in the late War, London, 1854; Basil Jackson's 'Tribute to the Memory of Sir Hudson Lowe' in Colburn's United Service Mag. March 1844; Henry's Events of a Military Life, London, 1843, vol. ii.; Forsyth's Captivity of Napoleon at St. Helena, London, 1853. 3 vols.; B. Jackson's Notes and Reminiscences of a Staff Officer, London, 1877 (privately printed); Brit. Mus. Addit. MSS. at supra; information supplied by Miss Lowe (Lowe's daughter). A reprint of O'Meara's Voice from St. Helena was published in London in 1888. with an introduction by Lieutenant-colonel R. W. Phipps, late royal artillery, written in spirit unfavourable to Lowe. The biographies and notes added to the work are worthless]
