Sir John Brownlow, 3rd Baronet
Sir John Brownlow, 3rd Baronet of Belton House near Grantham in Lincolnshire, was an English member of parliament. He built the grand mansion of Belton House, which survives today.
Life
He was born on 26 June 1659, the eldest surviving son and heir of Sir Richard Brownlow, 2nd Baronet of Humby, Lincolnshire, by his wife Elizabeth Freke, a daughter of John Freke of Stretton in Dorset.He was educated at Westminster School. In 1668 he succeeded his father as the 3rd baronet, of Humby, and in 1679 he inherited the estate of Belton, with others, from his childless great-uncle Sir John Brownlow, 1st Baronet. He built the present Belton House between 1685 and 1687, creating new gardens and lakes.
In 1686 he was Treasurer of the Marshalsea and in 1688 was appointed Sheriff of Lincolnshire. In 1689 he was elected as a member of parliament for Grantham, a seat he held until his early death in 1697.
In 1676 he married Alice Sherard, a daughter of Richard Sherard of Lopethorp in Lincolnshire, by whom he had four daughters but no sons:
- Jane Brownlow, who married Peregrine Bertie, 2nd Duke of Ancaster and Kesteven in 1711;
- Elizabeth Brownlow, who married John Cecil, 6th Earl of Exeter in 1699;
- Alicia Brownlow, who married Francis North, 2nd Baron Guilford in 1703;
- Margaret Brownlow
- Eleanor Brownlow, who in 1712 married her first cousin, John Brownlow, 1st Viscount Tyrconnel, 5th Baronet of Belton, the last living male of the Brownlow family, the son of her father's younger brother Sir William Brownlow, 4th Baronet. The marriage was childless, whereupon the titles became extinct and the Brownlow estates passed to the Viscount's nephew Sir John Cust, 3rd Baronet.