Lotho was the son of Otho and Lobelia Sackville-Baggins, the branch of the family that had long resented losing Bag End to Bilbo and then to Frodo. When Frodo left the Shire in 3018 he sold Bag End to the Sackville-Bagginses, and Lotho came into it.1,2
While the Ring-bearer was away, Lotho made himself rich and then powerful. Farmer Cotton told the returning hobbits how he had bought up farms, Sandyman's mill and a good deal of other property, and had sent great quantities of pipe-weed and food out of the Shire, south to Saruman. With Saruman's money came Saruman's men. Lotho called himself first Chief Shirriff and then simply the Chief, and the ruffians enforced his rules, cut down trees, built sheds and gathered and shared out the Shire's food.3
The hobbits called him Pimple. By the time the travellers came home he was no longer master even of the ruffians: they answered to Sharkey, who was Saruman himself.3
Lotho did not live to see the Shire freed. When Saruman, at the door of Bag End, spitefully told the hobbits that Wormtongue had killed Lotho in his sleep, Wormtongue cried out that Sharkey had made him do it. His mother Lobelia, released from the Lockholes, was broken by the news.3,4
Sources
Citations name the chapter rather than the page, so they work in any edition. The colour of each note shows what kind of source it is.
- Published story The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings as Tolkien published them.
- Appendices Tolkien's own appendices to The Lord of the Rings.
- Published story The Fellowship of the Ring, Book I, ch. 3, “Three is Company”
- Appendices The Lord of the Rings, Appendix C, “Family Trees”
- Published story The Return of the King, Book VI, ch. 8, “The Scouring of the Shire”
- Published story The Return of the King, Book VI, ch. 9, “The Grey Havens”