"1st Earl of Ellesmere" Francis Egerton Hand Written Letter For Sale

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"1st Earl of Ellesmere" Francis Egerton Hand Written Letter:
$174.99

Up for sale a RARE! "1st Earl of Ellesmere" Francis Egerton Hand Written Letter. 

January 1800 – 18 February 1857), known as Lord Francis Leveson-Gower until

1833, was a British politician, writer, traveller and patron of the arts. Ellesmere Island, a major island (10th in size among global

islands) in Nunavut, the Canadian Arctic, was named after him. Ellesmere was born at 21

Arlington Street, Piccadilly, London, on 1 January 1800, the third son of George

Leveson-Gower (then known as Lord Gower) and his wife, Elizabeth

Gordon who was 19th Countess of Sutherland in her own right. He

was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, and

then held a commission in the Life Guards,

which he resigned on his marriage In October 1803 his father

became Marquess of Stafford, having shortly before inherited the considerable

wealth (but not the titles) of Francis

Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater, whose will provided that the

Bridgewater estates should next pass to Francis, rather than his elder

brother George. Egerton entered Parliament in

1822 as member for the pocket seat he held until 1826. He afterwards and 1831, and for South

Lancashire between 1835 and 1846. In 1835, a parliamentary

sketch-writer said of his performance in the Commons: "He hardly ever

speaks, and then but very indifferently… His voice is harsh and husky and not

very strong. There is no variety either in it or in his gesture. Both are monotonous

in a high degree... He is much respected by his own party, both for his

personal worth, and for his high family connexions. In politics he

was a Conservative who - as

he later said - specific policies his views usually led him to support Sir Robert Peel;

the most obvious exception being his support of the Ten-Hour movement. In 1823, he was a junior member of the

mission of FitzRoy Somerset sent

by Wellington to Madrid.:4On the religious issues of the day, he

held that the state and its institutions should remain Anglican, but that - provided that was done - other sects

should be conciliated as far as was then possible. He opposed opening the

ancient universities to Dissenters, arguing that they could get equally good

education elsewhere; e.g. at London University, whose formation he had supported. In 1825

he was chosen to move the Loyal Address; later in the year he made and saw

carried a motion for the endowment of the Roman Catholic clergy in Ireland, at a time when the government were pledged to

seek the consent of the King before doing so: some suspected he did so at the

behest of the government. Appointed a Lord of the Treasury in

1827, he was promoted to Under-Secretary of State for War and the Colonies in

February 1828 at the request of William Huskisson, having first to overcome the opposition of

his father. When Huskisson resigned in May 1828, Egerton's father insisted upon

Egerton's resignation; on Egerton's subsequent account because he thought

the Wellington cabinet had lost its more enlightened elements

and would now take a hard line against Catholic Relief. Egerton,

however, was convinced that Wellington intended some measure of relief and soon

rejoined the government; in June 1828 he was made a Privy

Councillor and appointed Chief Secretary for

Ireland,  a post he

held until July 1830, when he became Secretary at War for a short time during the last Tory ministry. Daniel

O'Connell, when alleging duplicity by the subsequent Whig

administration, said "I never knew a gentleman more incapable of violating

his promise than Lord Francis Leveson Gower" Sutherland was a pocket

county of his family and when in 1831 his father supported parliamentary reform

but Francis did not, his father presented the seat to a supporter of reform: in

1833 his father was made Duke of Sutherland. His father, however, died within

the year, and the estates he had inherited from Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater passed to

Francis, who then took, by Royal Licence, the surname of Egerton. The Bridgewater estates were held under

trust and gave an annual income reported to be £90,000, but the trust was

drawn up to exclude Egerton from its day-to-day management. The principal

assets were the Bridgewater Canal, and the

collieries at Worsley, which also served as the headquarters

of the canal. n a letter of 1837, Egerton spoke of the various undertakings at

Worsley giving him influence over the immediate destinies of between three and

four thousand people. The coal mines at Worsley were

said in 1837 to employ 1700 people. It was reported in 1842 that there had

been 101 persons killed and injured in them in the previous three years One

of the staff of the 1833 Factory Commission had

noted that the Worsley mine "was said to be the best mine in the

place" but concluded from what he saw that "the hardest labour in the

worst-conducted factory is less hard, less cruel, and less demoralizing than

the labour in the best of coal-mines"    Tne trustee lived in Worsley Old Hall and was the effective

manager of the estates, but after he resisted inspection of the books by

Egerton's auditor and man of business James Loch MP  he was forced out and replaced

by Loch. Egerton then made Worsley New Hall one of his principal residences,

but soon demolished it and replaced it with a larger hall in Elizabethan style.

He set about making Worsley a model estate village; within ten years a national

newspaper, deploring the 'ignorance of the collier class' claimed "What

may be done by a proprietor, what should be done by every proprietor, is

illustrated in the case of Lord Francis Egerton and the Worsley colliers".

Until Egerton had taken up residence at Worsley it had been "imperfectly

provided with the means of moral and intellectual improvement for the

people" but now "The population is nearly 6,000. For their use, two

churches have been built, and a third is now in course of erection. Five

clergymen have been provided, in addition to the one original incumbent.

Seven-day schools have been established, with trained masters and mistresses,

fully supplied with the best books and apparatus. A reading-room has been

opened, containing the best periodicals of the day, and a considerable

circulating library. The room is provided with fire and lights; is open every

evening; and is much frequented by the labouring people, as an agreeable resort

after their day's work. A large field, of not less than sixty acres, has been

set apart as a recreation ground… Cricket, quoits, and other athletic games are

encouraged; and the private band occasionally attends there on pay-days. In the

centre, an ornamental building has been erected, in which the wages of all the

labourers on that part of the estate are paid fortnightly. There are few

public-houses and no beer-shops on the estate. The houses built for the workmen

are convenient; most of them have four rooms and a pantry, back-yard and

garden, at a rent of about £3 per annum, including rates" Worsley

Hall served as a suitable base for royal visits to Manchester (the first

occurring in 1851) and Egerton presided at the 1842 meeting of

the British Association of Science in Manchester[24][f] but Egerton had little influence in Manchester;

when his name was put forward for presidency of brought forward as an alternative candidate, and duly elected. Egerton's politics (Tory and

protectionist) were not those of (Reform and Free Trade) Manchester, and his

association with the Bridgewater trust also told against him.

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