Edward Clarke Lowe

Edward Clarke Lowe (15 December 1823- March 30, 1912) was an English educator and a key participant in the foundation and development of the Woodard Schools.

Lowe was born at Everton in 1823, the youngest son of Samuel Lowe an attorney and his wife Maria Murray, and was given the name Clarke after an uncle John Clarke, Master of Rugeley Grammar School. His father died when he was four and his mother when he was ten and it was his eldest sister Emily who looked after the family. She had been well educated by her uncle John Clarke and set up a very successful school at Bootle near Liverpool. Not only did she pay off the eldest brother's debts but she also funded the education of her younger brothers and sisters. She also educated them initially at her own school, and Edward Lowe was no exception. He was probably with the school when it moved to Seaforth. He then went to Magdalene Hall Oxford under Rev. William Jacobson. In June 1844 he was elected to the Bible Clerkship at Lincoln College, Oxford where he became a pupil of Mark Pattison. In 1847, he became second master of the King's School Ottery St. Mary. He was ordained deacon in September of the same year and also became curate of the parish.

In 1849 he joined Rev Nathaniel Woodard at Shoreham as second master at St Nicholas College Lancing. Woodard had just begun his efforts to found, by public subscription, a system of Church of England education for the middle classes. In January 1850, Lowe became first headmaster at Hurstpierpoint College, the first middle school of the system, where he stayed until the end of 1872. He made a lasting impression, and the school still performs Shakespeare plays as he established them in 1854, and celebrates the "Lowe's Dole", an annual presentation to the choristers which he funded.

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