| Honorific-Prefix: | The Right Honourable |
| The Viscount Ullswater | |
| Office: | Minister of State for Housing |
| Primeminister: | John Major |
| Term Start: | 20 July 1994 |
| Term End: | 6 July 1995 |
| Predecessor: | George Young |
| Successor: | Robert Jones |
| Office1: | Chief Whip of the House of Lords Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms |
| Primeminister1: | John Major |
| Term Start1: | 16 September 1993 |
| Term End1: | 20 July 1994 |
| Predecessor1: | The Lord Hesketh |
| Successor1: | The Lord Strathclyde |
| Office3: | Lord-in-waiting Government Whip |
| Primeminister3: | Margaret Thatcher |
| Term Start3: | 26 July 1989 |
| Term End3: | 22 July 1990 |
| Predecessor3: | The Lord Henley |
| Successor3: | The Lord Reay |
| Office2: | Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Employment |
| Primeminister2: | Margaret Thatcher John Major |
| Term Start2: | 24 July 1990 |
| Term End2: | 16 September 1993 |
| Predecessor2: | The Lord Strathclyde |
| Successor2: | The Lord Henley |
| Office4: | Member of the House of Lords |
| Status4: | Lord Temporal |
| Term Label4: | as a hereditary peer |
| Term Start4: | 24 July 1963 |
| Term End4: | 11 November 1999 |
| Predecessor4: | The 1st Viscount Ullswater |
| Successor4: | Seat abolished |
| Term Label5: | as an elected hereditary peer |
| Term Start5: | 28 March 2003 |
| Term End5: | 20 July 2022[1] |
| 1Blankname5: | By-election |
| 1Namedata5: | 28 March 2003 |
| Predecessor5: | The 13th Viscount of Oxfuird |
| Successor5: | The 4th Baron Roborough |
| Birth Date: | 9 January 1942 |
| Party: | Conservative |
| Alma Mater: | Trinity College, Cambridge |
Nicholas James Christopher Lowther, 2nd Viscount Ullswater (born 9 January 1942), is a British hereditary peer and former member of the House of Lords who sat as a Conservative. He succeeded his great-grandfather in the viscountcy of Ullswater in 1949, being one of very few peers to have succeeded a great-grandfather in a title.
He served as a whip and a minister under Margaret Thatcher and John Major between 1989 and 1995 culminating in serving as the Minister of State for Housing from 1994 to 1995.
Lowther was the son of John Lowther (1910–1942), and Priscilla Lambert (1917–1945). His father was secretary to HRH The Duke of Kent, who served as best man at their 1937 wedding.[2] His father died alongside the Duke in the Dunbeath air crash.
Lowther was educated at Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge.
Lowther was made a Lord-in-waiting (whip) in January 1989 by Margaret Thatcher before becoming Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department of Employment in July 1990. He was retained by John Major in that role until 1993, when he became Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen at Arms (Government Chief Whip in the House of Lords). He remained in this role for a year. He became Minister of State for Housing at the Department of the Environment (as well as a Privy Counsellor) in 1994, but left the Government in a 1995 reshuffle.
In 1998, he was appointed Private Secretary to Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon, and continued in this office until her death in 2002. He was appointed Lieutenant of the Royal Victorian Order in the special Honours List issued by the Queen after the Princess's death.
As a member of a Royal Household he could not take part in partisan politics and did not seek to remain in the House of Lords when the House of Lords Act 1999 was passed. But after the death of the Viscount of Oxfuird in January 2003, he won the all-house by-election, enabling him to return to the House of Lords.[3]
On 22 May 2006, Lord Ullswater was nominated for the newly created post of Lord Speaker, and in the election held on 28 June 2006 emerged in third place out of nine candidates. He served as one of the Deputy Speakers in the Lords until May 2020; from June 2020 until May 2021, he served as Deputy Chairman of Committees.[4] His great-grandfather, James Lowther, served as Speaker of the House of Commons 1905–1921.
Ullswater retired from the House of Lords on 20 July 2022.[5]
Lord Ullswater is the Chairman of Lonsdale Settled Estates Ltd and a Director of Lowther Trustees Limited, both companies that manage the family landholdings in Cumbria.[6]
| Crest: | A dragon passant Argent. |
| Escutcheon: | Or six annulets three two and one and in chief a crescent for difference all Sable. |
| Supporters: | On either side a horse Argent gorged with a wreath of laurel Vert and charged on the shoulder with a portcullis chained Or. |
| Motto: | Magistratum Indicat Virum (The Office Shows The Man)[7] |
Lord Ullswater was an amateur jockey in his youth.
In 1967, he married Susan Weatherby. The couple has two sons and two daughters:
The family lives at Docking in Norfolk.