Lower, William

Born Cornwall, England, 1569 or 1570

Died (Dyfed), Wales, 12 April 1615

Sir William Lower was a gentleman and statesman who became a close collaborator of Thomas Harriot , through whom he obtained a telescope and made some of the first ever telescopic astronomical observations. Lower was the eldest son of and heir to Thomas Lower of Winnow. He attended Oxford University, entering Exeter College in 1586. He subsequently studied at the Middle Temple in London. Lower was elected to represent Bodmin, Cornwall, in Parliament in 1601; from 1604 to 1611, he represented Lostwithiel, Cornwall. He was knighted by King James I in 1603.

Around 1601 Lower married Penelope Perrot of Carmarthenshire, heir to the estate of her father, Sir Thomas Perrot. Lower moved to the Perrot estate at Trefenty near Saint Clears. When Lower died, he was survived by his wife and a daughter, Dorothy, but his wife was pregnant at the time of his death and later gave birth to a son, Thomas. Several other sons had...