As such, the House of Lobkowicz belong to the small group of families that constitute the Hochadel (German for 'high nobility').

In 1825, Ferdinand Joseph was able solidify the family's princely status by obtaining the honorific title of Durchlaucht ("Serene Highness").

[6] The prince embraced the entrepreneurial spirit of the times and opened a substantial sugar factory in the town of Bílina.

It was the upper house of the Imperial Council, the bicameral legislature of the Austrian Empire (and of the Cisleithanian half of Austria-Hungary upon the Compromise of 1867).

Also from 1861 onwards, he was a member of the Bohemian Diet (the parliament of the Kingdom of Bohemia within the Austro-Hungarian Empire that existed between 1861 and Czechoslovak independence in 1918).