Francis Egerton, 1st Earl of Ellesmere

The Right Honourable The Earl of Ellesmere KG, PC
Portrait of the Earl of Ellesmere by Edwin Longsden Long
Chief Secretary for Ireland
In office 21 June 1828 – 30 July 1830
Monarch	George IV William IV
Prime Minister	The Duke of Wellington
Preceded by	Hon. William Lamb
Succeeded by	Sir Henry Hardinge
Secretary at War
In office 30 July 1830 – 15 November 1830
Monarch	William IV
Prime Minister	The Duke of Wellington
Preceded by	Sir Henry Hardinge
Succeeded by	Charles Watkin Williams Wynn
Personal details
Born	1 January 1800 (1800-01)
Died	18 February 1857 (1857-02-19)
Nationality	British
Political party	Tory
Spouse(s)	Harriet Greville (d. 1866)
Alma mater	Christ Church, Oxford

Francis Egerton, 1st Earl of Ellesmere KG, PC (1 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.

Background and education

Ellesmere was the second son of George Leveson-Gower, 1st Duke of Sutherland and his wife, Elizabeth Gordon suo jure 19th Countess of Sutherland. He was born at 21 Arlington Street, Piccadilly, London, on 1 January 1800, and educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford.

Political career

Egerton entered Parliament in 1822 as member for the pocket borough of Bletchingley in Surrey, a seat he held until 1826. He afterwards sat for Sutherland between 1826 and 1831, and for South Lancashire between 1835 and 1846. In politics he was a moderate Conservative of independent views, as was shown by his support for the proposal to establish a University of London, also by making and carrying a motion for the endowment of the Roman Catholic clergy in Ireland, and by advocating free trade long before Sir Robert Peel yielded on the question. Appointed a Lord of the Treasury in 1827, he held the post of Chief Secretary for Ireland from 1828 till July 1830, when he became Secretary at War for a short time during the last Tory ministry.

In 1833 he assumed, by Royal Licence, the surname of Egerton, having succeeded on the death of his father to the estates which the latter inherited from the Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater. In 1846 he was raised to the peerage as Earl of Ellesmere, of Ellesmere in the County of Salop, with the subsidiary title Viscount Brackley, of Brackley in the County of Northampton.

Ellesmere was a member of the Canterbury Association from 27 March 1848. In 1849, the chief surveyor of the Canterbury Association, Joseph Thomas, named Lake Ellesmere in New Zealand after him.

Writings, travels and art patronage

Ellesmere's claims to remembrance are founded chiefly on his services to literature and the fine arts. Before he was twenty he printed for private circulation a volume of poems, which he followed up after a short interval by the publication of a translation of Goethe's Faust, one of the earliest that appeared in England, with some translations of German lyrics and a few original poems. In 1839 he visited the Mediterranean and the Holy Land. His impressions of travel were recorded in Mediterranean Sketches (1843) and in the notes to a poem entitled The Pilgrimage. He published several other works in prose and verse. His literary reputation secured for him the position of rector of the University of Aberdeen in 1841.

A singular exception to the artistic and literary character of Ellesmere's writing efforts lay in the field of military theory. Ellesmere, as a protegé of the Duke of Wellington, became very interested in the historical writings of the Prussian military theorist General Carl von Clausewitz (1789-1831). He was involved in the discussion that ultimately compelled Wellington to write an essay in response to Clausewitz's study of the Waterloo campaign of 1815. Ellesmere himself anonymously published a translation of Clausewitz's The Campaign of 1812 in Russia (London: J. Murray, 1843), a subject in which Wellington was also deeply interested.

Lord Ellesmere was a munificent and yet discriminating patron of artists. To the collection of pictures which he inherited from his great-uncle, the 3rd Duke of Bridgewater, he made numerous additions, and he built a gallery to which the public were allowed free access. Lord Ellesmere served as president of the Royal Geographical Society and as president of the Royal Asiatic Society (1849–1852), and he was a trustee of the National Gallery. He also initiated the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, by donating the Chandos portrait of Shakespeare.

Family

On 18 June 1822, he married Harriet Catherine Greville, a great-great-granddaughter of the 5th Baron Brooke. They had eleven children, including:

• George Egerton, 2nd Earl of Ellesmere (15 June 1823 - 19 September 1862);
• Hon. Francis Egerton (15 September 1824 - 15 December 1895), who became an admiral, and was a Member of Parliament for two constituencies; he married in 1865 (Lady) Louisa Caroline née Cavendish, daughter of the 7th Duke of Devonshire (by marriage); they had issue;
• Hon. Algernon Fulke Egerton (31 December 1825 - 14 July 1891), who was a Member of Parliament for three constituencies, and married in 1863 Hon. Alice Louisa Cavendish, a niece of the 7th Duke of Devonshire; they had issue;
• Hon. Arthur Frederick Egerton (6 February 1829 - 25 February 1866), who became Lieutenant-Colonel, and married in 1858 Helen Smith, daughter of Martin Tucker Smith and his wife, Louisa Ridley; they had issue;
• Lady Alice Harriot Frederica Egerton (10 October 1830 - 22 December 1928), who married George Byng, 3rd Earl of Strafford in 1854; they had no issue;
• Lady Blanche Egerton (22 February 1832 - 20 March 1894), who married John Montagu, 7th Earl of Sandwich in 1865 as his second wife; they had no issue;
• Hon. Granville Egerton (c. 1834-1851), who was killed at sea; unmarried, seemingly no issue.

The family lived at Hatchford Park, Cobham, Surrey, where Lady Ellesmere laid out the gardens. Her mother, Lady Charlotte Greville (née Cavendish-Bentinck) died at Hatchford Park on 28 July 1862, aged 86.

Francis died on 18 February 1857 at his London home, Bridgwater House, St. James' Park; and was succeeded by his first son, George. On the extinction of the senior line of the Dukedom of Sutherland in 1963, his great-great-grandson, the fifth Earl, succeeded as 6th Duke of Sutherland.

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by the Earl of Ellesmere
• Portraits of Francis Egerton, 1st Earl of Ellesmere at the National Portrait Gallery, London
• Archival material relating to Francis Egerton, 1st Earl of Ellesmere listed at the UK National Archives
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Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Marquess of Titchfield Edward Henry Edwardes	Member of Parliament for Bletchingley 1822–1826 With: Edward Henry Edwardes	Succeeded by Charles Tennyson William Russell
Preceded by George Macpherson-Grant	Member of Parliament for Sutherland 1826–1831	Succeeded by Sir Hugh Innes, Bt
Preceded by George Wood Viscount Molyneux	Member of Parliament for South Lancashire 1835–1846 With: Richard Bootle-Wilbraham 1835–1844 William Entwistle 1844–1846	Succeeded by William Brown William Entwistle
Political offices
Preceded by Lord Stanley	Under-Secretary of State for War and the Colonies 1828	Succeeded by Horace Twiss
Preceded by William Lamb	Chief Secretary for Ireland 1828–1830	Succeeded by Sir Henry Hardinge
Preceded by Sir Henry Hardinge	Secretary at War 1830	Succeeded by Charles Watkin Williams-Wynn
Academic offices
Preceded by Unknown	Rector of the University of Aberdeen 1841 – Date unknown	Succeeded by Unknown
Honorary titles
Preceded by The Earl of Sefton	Lord Lieutenant of Lancashire 1855–1857	Succeeded by The Earl of Burlington
Peerage of the United Kingdom
New creation	Earl of Ellesmere 1846–1857	Succeeded by George Egerton