Low, David (Alexander Cecil) (1891–1963)

New Zealand-born British political cartoonist. He worked for various newspapers but is chiefly associated with the London Evening Standard; during the period 1927–50 he was Britain's leading political cartoonist. Admired for his bold draughtsmanship as well as his perceptiveness of contemporary events, his creations included ‘Colonel Blimp’, a personification of complacent, old-fashioned values, and the TUC Carthorse. He was knighted in 1962.

Low's work is remarkably free from the conventional devices of the professional cartoonist, and in his drawings of celebrities in various walks of life, which appeared in the New Statesman, he showed a gift for genially humorous portraiture. During the 1930s and 1940s, his appeals to national sentiment were founded on an understanding of the principal political figures of the period, from Churchill, Baldwin, and Chamberlain to Mussolini, Hitler and Goering. He was particularly critical of British Conservative supporters of appeasement.

Born at Dunedin, New Zealand, he worked for various New Zealand papers until 1911, when he joined the staff of the Bulletin in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. He went to London in 1919 to work on the Star, at the suggestion of the novelist Arnold Bennett, and became as celebrated for his portraits of Lloyd George. He left the Star for the Evening Standard in 1927, and moved to the Daily Herald in 1950. In 1953 he became political cartoonist of the Manchester Guardian (now the Guardian), where he remained until his death. He published collections of his cartoons, including The New Rake's Progress (1934), Years of Wrath (1949), Low's Company (1952), and The Fearful Fifties (1960).

Low, (George) David (1956–2008)

US astronaut. His three space shuttle flights include the first flight of Spacelab on board the shuttle Endeavour in 1993. Microgravity experiments were conducted during the mission, and Low, who was the payload commander, carried out nearly six hours of extravehicular activity. He logged 714 hours in space, leaving NASA in 1996 to join Orbital Sciences Corporation.

Born in Cleveland, Ohio, he received a bachelor of science degree from Cornell University in 1980 and a master of science degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics from Stanford University in 1983. He worked as an engineer in NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena 1980–84, when he was selected as an astronaut.