Toupie Lowther

Lowther was born in London, the daughter of Francis William Lowther, born in Italy, and Louise Beatrice de Fonblanque, born in Montreal. She was the sister of Claude Lowther, MP for Lonsdale. Francis William was the illegitimate son of the William Lowther, 2nd Earl of Lonsdale and Emilia Cresotti, an Italian opera singer. Her maternal grandfather was the historian Edward Barrington de Fonblanque. Two years before Toupie's birth, the Earl of Lonsdale died and left her father a healthy inheritance of £125,000 (). She was educated in France at the boarding school Les Ruches in Avon, Seine-et-Marne and received a bachelor's of science from the Sorbonne. ==Tennis career==

Lowther was a gifted athlete. The Times described her as "a brilliant fencer and sportswoman, who could hold her own in anything that required skill and brains." In 1898, at Bad Homburg she lost to compatriot Elsie Lane 5–7, 5–7 after a "brilliant, albeit erratic, Toupée (sic) Lowther who had abandoned her usual play in favour of an uninspired game from base line in two straight sets." In 1899 she lost a close match in an early round to Charlotte "Chatty" Cooper, (later Mrs Sterry). After leading 5–1 in the second set Toupie lost six games in a row. However Toupie was finally victorious at Bad Homburg in 1901 defeating Gladys Duddell in the final 6–0, 6–0, a victory described as the result of "patience and perseverance". Lowther won the singles event at the British Covered Court Championships in 1900, 1902 and 1903. In 1901 she won the singles title at the German Championships, held that year in Bad Homburg, and received her prize, a gold brooch, from King Edward. Between 1900 and 1907 she made five appearances at the Wimbledon Championships, playing in the singles event. Her best result was reaching the semifinals in 1903, losing in straight sets to eventual champion Dorothea Douglass Lambert Chambers, as well as in 1906, this time losing in three sets to Charlotte Cooper Sterry. She was described with affection by the tennis writers of the time. The brothers Reginald and Laurence Doherty invited her to write a chapter entitled ''Ladies' Play for their book Lawn Tennis published in 1903 and George Hillyard, the All England Tennis Club Secretary for many years and husband to Blanche Hillyard in his book Forty Years of First Class Tennis'' (1924) was glowing in his appreciation: "Here is the extraordinary case of a player whose potentialities were greater than any other English lady who ever walked onto a court, but who, unfortunately was saddled with a temperament which was so hopelessly unsuitable to lawn tennis that it reduced her play.... not one, but at least 2 classes below what her form should have been... It is no flight of imagination to say that had Miss Lowther been blessed with the temperament of a Mrs Sterry or a Mrs Lambert Chambers, she might have been as fine a player as Mlle Lenglen herself." Lowther was also an outstanding fencer, a keen motorist, weightlifter and practitioner of jujitsu. An article in The Herald in 1901 mentions her as the lady fencing champion of England. A lesbian, she was known as 'Brother' by Romaine Brooks, and she crossed the alps on a motorbike with her god-daughter Fabienne Lafargue De-Avilla riding pillion. ==World War I==

During World War I, frustrated with the lack of opportunities the British Army offered women during the war, she organised an all-female team of ambulance drivers, the Hackett-Lowther Ambulance Unit in France. She was awarded the Croix de Guerre in July 1918. Additionally she was the London president of the Relief for Belgian prisoners in Germany committee. She returned to London in August 1919 after two-and-a-half years in France. and Hall drew on some of Lowther's experiences in depicting the life and character of its protagonist Stephen. ==Popular culture==

Toupie Lowther is depicted as a member of a secret society of bodyguards protecting the leaders of the radical suffragettes in the graphic novel trilogy ''Suffrajitsu: Mrs. Pankhurst's Amazons'' (2015). She was also portrayed in Murder in Montparnass, a Phryne Fisher novel by Kerry Greenwood (2002). ==Career finals==

Singles (20) titles (12) runners up (8) ==Notes==