George Wyndham, 3rd Earl of Egremont
Encyclopedia
George O'Brien Wyndham, 3rd Earl of Egremont (18 December 1751 – 11 November 1837) was a British peer
. A direct descendant of Sir John Wyndham, he succeeded to his father's titles in 1763 at the age of 12, inheriting estates at Petworth
, Egremont
, Leconfield
and land in Wiltshire
and Somerset
. He later inherited the lands of the Earl of Thomond
in Ireland. He was a great patron of art and interested in the latest scientific advances. He was an agriculturist, a friend of Arthur Young, and enthusiastic for canal building, investing in many commercial ventures for the improvement of his estates. He was also not entirely indifferent to politics.
For some time the painter Turner lived at his Sussex residence, Petworth House
, and many painters including John Constable
, C R Leslie, George Romney
, the sculptor John Flaxman
, and other talented artists received commissions from Egremont, who filled his house with valuable works of art. The earl was a sponsor of the Petworth Emigration Scheme
intended to relieve rural poverty caused by overpopulation. Generous and hospitable, blunt and eccentric, the earl was in his day a very prominent figure in English society. Charles Greville
says, he was "immensely rich and his munificence was equal to his wealth"; and again that "in his time Petworth was like a great inn".
s. In 1774 he added O'Brien to his name on inheriting extensive estates in Ireland from his uncle the Earl of Thomond
. He went on two grand tours
to Italy in the 1770s. At the family's newly built London residence, Egremont House
, he associated with fashionable Maccaronis
, and sculptor John Flaxman
who contributed an heroic group of 'Michael overthrowing Satan' for the North Gallery. Turner spent a lot of time at Petworth House and had a studio on an upper floor. He painted landscapes of Petworth, Arundel
, and one of the earl's canal projects, the Chichester Ship Canal. Like his father, the earl also collected French furniture, as when he visited Paris in July 1802 during the Peace of Amiens, buying a pair of five-light candelabra supported by bronze female caryatids with upraised arms and with their legs flanked by seated gryphons holding up the ends of their tunics so as to reveal their feet, supplied by M. E. Lignereux
The earl was an enthusiast for canal building which would allow agricultural improvement on his Petworth estates by bringing in chalk from Houghton
for liming and coal to replace scarce supplies of firewood, releasing more land for food production. The first venture was the Rother Navigation, making the River Rother
navigable to Midhurst
. Failing to find any reliable contractor to build the navigation during the time of Canal Mania
most of the work was done by the earl's own estate workers. Starting from Stopham
the navigation reached Petworth in 1795 and Midhurst in 1796. A branch to Haslingbourne, south of Petworth, the Petworth Canal
was then built, initially intended to be extended north to link to the River Wey
, and initial surveys were conducted. This idea was soon abandoned when the cost of locks needed to reach the north side of Petworth was realised.
In 1796 the earl purchased 36% of the shares in the Arun Navigation Company, saving it from liquidation when it was burdened with the £16,000 cost of building the Coldwaltham
cut and Hardham
tunnel. Having abandoned plans for a canal from Petworth to Shalford
and keen for the nation to have an inland waterway linking London and Portsmouth
, safe from natural hazards to coastal shipping and naval attack by the French, the earl turned his attention to linking the River Arun to the River Wey in Surrey
. The Arun Canal had extended the navigable length of the River Arun to Newbridge on the road from Wisborough Green
to Billingshurst
and the Wey and Arun Junction Canal was completed in 1816 to connect to the Godalming Navigation. The completion of the Portsmouth and Arundel Canal
, including the Chichester Ship Canal, in 1823, completed the London to Portsmouth route for barges and also the earl's investment in canal building.
A number of vessels were named Egremont, including a barge on the Arun Navigation, a brigantine
built at Littlehampton
for coastal trading, but wrecked on the Goodwin Sands
after only two years, and later a steam tug used to tow barges across Chichester and Langstone harbours for the Portsmouth and Arundel Canal.
, which sent 1800 people from Sussex and neighbouring counties to Upper Canada
between 1832 and 1837. The earl sponsored those living on his land by the entire £10 per head cost of the passage if they joined the scheme.
The Reverend Arthur Young stayed at Petworth House while conducting his surveys of agriculture in England. The earl established a pedigree herd of Sussex cattle
from the local breed, commended by Arthur Young who wrote that they "must be unquestionably ranked among the best of the kingdom" The herd is maintained at Stag Park to the present day. Devon and Hereford cattle, together with crossbreds were also kept. Different breeds of sheep were tried and exotic Tibetan Shaul goats producing fine wool for hatters.
Stag Park model farm was created in the northern part of Petworth Park on land cleared from scrub and gorse with between 700 and 800 acres divided into fields and drained. Land previously used for producing wood fuel could now be used for food production as wood had been replaced by coal coming by the new canal system. Crop rotations including turnips, tares, wheat, barley, oats and grass were introduced. Potatoes were grown at Petworth and rhubarb as a medicine. More unusually Young describes opium production at Petworth, with juices from the incised poppy heads being scraped into earthenware bowls and dried in the sun. The 1797 crop was the largest grown in England, and was said to be purer than imported opium.
The 24,000 acre estates in Yorkshire at Wressle
and Leconfield
in the East Riding
, Catton
and Seamer
in the North Riding, and Spofforth
and Tadcaster
in the West Riding were also greatly improved with £26,000 being spent on drainage and fencing alone between 1797 and 1812.
As well as breeding horses and introducing improved machinery, the earl was keen to continue using draught oxen when they were going out of favour elsewhere. Young records that traditional wooden yokes were found by experiment to be superior to horse-style collars.
John Ellman, writing in The History, Antiquities and Topography of the County of Sussex by Thomas Walker Horsfield
(1835), writes of Egremont:
Egremont bought land at Houghton
in 1800 where he developed chalk pits, which Arthur Young reported in 1808 as producing 40,000 tons annually. A canal cut was dug from the River Arun to allow chalk to be moved by barge to lime kilns on higher reaches of the river system, including one at Haslingbourne, south of Petworth.
, south of Petworth and Iping
, west of Midhurst. Near Northchapel
a government factory was set up to produce high quality charcoal for making gunpowder by heating alder wood in iron cylinders heated by coal.
At Spofforth in North Yorkshire geologist William Smith
was employed to search for coal and iron ore deposits. £1,000 was invested in sinking test wells through 1803 and 1804, including the use of steam engines to pump out water. Six thin veins of coal were found but nothing of commercial value.
and had his first winner at Lewes in 1777. Assassin won the Derby
in 1782, the first of five Derby winners and five Oaks
winners.
and used it to return his two younger brothers, Charles and Percy, to the House of Commons. Charles only served one parliament for Midhurst and by 1796 the seat had been sold on to Lord Carrington. When the party split in 1792 over the French Revolution he sided with the more conservative faction who supported Prime Minister William Pitt
in his condemnation of the "wicked and seditious" writings of radicals such as Thomas Paine
. He was opposed to the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1832 which introduced the harsh workhouse
system. When William Hawley the Sussex Poor Law Commission
er visited Petworth House in October 1835 he was politely received but informed that the earl considered the Act "one of the worst measures that could have been devised".
While Egremont may have remained aloof from day to day affairs, his secretary Thomas Sockett, Rector of Petworth, was deeply involved with poor relief and emigration, and became engaged in bitter disputes with the commissioner over provision of relief to Petworth paupers and the running of the Petworth Emigration Scheme. There was coverage in the national press and Sockett, together with other witnesses from Petworth, gave evidence to a House Of Commons Select Committee in March 1837.
force was revived at Petworth House in 1795 "in case of invasion or internal commotion", reflecting aristocratic nervousness following the French revolution. Composed of landowners and tenant farmers this cavalry force was naturally commanded by the most powerful landowner, the earl himself. Volunteers provided their own horse while the government paid for maintenance and basic equipment. Egremont himself bought extra arms, helmets, cloaks and feathers from London. Volunteers gained exemptions from taxes on horses, hair powder
and from road tolls. By 1798 the force had fifty two members.
The earl provided land in 1784 for a new House of Correction, to replace the previous gaol, which had been a squalid place consisting of two unheated rooms and unable to be enlarged to provide the work which was considered essential for the moral improvement of inmates. Delays were caused by petitioning by rate payers against the costs they would have to bear. Thirty two cells in two storeys were built over brick arch arcades to prevent tunnelling out, and the institution opened in 1788 near the present police station and court house. Prisoners were kept in strict solitary confinement, never allowed to speak to each other; even when in chapel they were in individual high sided box pews. Exercise in the outside yards, called "airing", was also done individually.
Town gas
was introduced in 1836 when a gas works was built in Station Road, using coal brought to Coultershaw wharf by barge and later by rail to Petworth railway station
. A monument which stands at the north end of East Street was given by the townspeople to show their gratitude to the earl.
The second-hand spire which Egremont bought from a Brighton church for St Mary's Church became crooked and was taken down in the 20th century, but the great wall which he had built around Petworth Park is still a feature of the area. Built of sandstone masonry over two metres tall, some fourteen miles of wall surrounds the park and subdivides it into three parts, the deer park in the south, then a large area of woodland, with farmland and woods in the northern part. The stone road which runs the length of the park to emerge at the junction of the Ebernoe
road with the A283 once continued northward, passing to the east of Northchapel
and through Frith Wood to rejoin the A283 London road at a pair of gatehouses which still stand to the north of Northchapel village. This road provided a private bypass of the toll gate at Northchapel for the earl's family and friends.
, sometimes called "the first officially recorded dumb blonde", a French courtesan who had moved to London during the French revolution, with whom he was frequently seen at the opera. He was later close to Lady Melbourne
whose son William Lamb
, later Prime Minister, was widely regarded as Egremont's son and was said to look remarkably like him. Lamb often spent time at Petworth House as a child and continued to visit Egremont until the end of the earl's life. Egremont called off a planned marriage to Lady Maria Walpole, a granddaughter of Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole
Egremont inherited the recently built Egremont House
in Piccadilly
and it was known as a haunt of Macaroni
s. As his country base he hired Stansted House during 1775 and 1776 while renovation work was in progress at Petworth House. He also spent much time at Brighton where he had a house in Kemptown
, East Lodge on the east side of Upper Rock Gardens. He attended Brighton and Lewes races and visited the Prince Regent
at the Royal Pavilion
. Egremont was known for his philanthropy, being a founding subscriber of the Royal Sussex Hospital.
Egremont maintained around fifteen mistresses who had more than forty children between them at Petworth House. It is recorded that the peace of the household would often be disturbed by disputes between the children, with their respective mothers joining in. The children, of the more favoured mistresses at least, especially those of Elizabeth Ilive, were educated by Thomas Sockett, a protegé of the earl who became Rector of Petworth while also acting as the earl's secretary. On 16 July 1801 Egremont married Elizabeth Ilive, already having seven illegitimate children by her. Their eighth child, Elizabeth, died in infancy and Ilive left Petworth after this to live in London. He also had four or five children with Elizabeth Fox and many others by other women.
In earlier centuries a horse fair was held at Egdean
in early September. It was one of the last occasions on which Egremont was seen out in public before he died. The earl gave a £20 prize for the best three year old colt or filly.
The earl died at Petworth House on 11 November 1837. He was succeeded by his nephew George Francis Wyndham, 4th Earl of Egremont who inherited the Somerset estates, and on whose death the Earldom of Egremont became extinct. Petworth, however, and estates in Yorkshire and Ireland passed to Colonel George Wyndham, the eldest natural son of the third Earl. In 1859 he was created Baron Leconfield
. Henry Wyndham inherited the family lands in Cumberland
.
Children by Elizabeth Fox;
Peerage of Great Britain
The Peerage of Great Britain comprises all extant peerages created in the Kingdom of Great Britain after the Act of Union 1707 but before the Act of Union 1800...
. A direct descendant of Sir John Wyndham, he succeeded to his father's titles in 1763 at the age of 12, inheriting estates at Petworth
Petworth
Petworth is a small town and civil parish in the Chichester District of West Sussex, England. It is located at the junction of the A272 east-west road from Heathfield to Winchester and the A283 Milford to Shoreham-by-Sea road. Some twelve miles to the south west of Petworth along the A285 road...
, Egremont
Egremont, Cumbria
Egremont is a market town and civil parish in the Borough of Copeland in Cumbria, England, south of Whitehaven and on the River Ehen. The town, which lies at the foot of Uldale Valley and Dent Fell, was historically within Cumberland and has a long industrial heritage including dyeing, weaving and...
, Leconfield
Leconfield
Leconfield is a village and civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It is situated approximately north west of Beverley town centre and lies on the A614 road....
and land in Wiltshire
Wiltshire
Wiltshire is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset, Somerset, Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire. It contains the unitary authority of Swindon and covers...
and Somerset
Somerset
The ceremonial and non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West England borders Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. It is partly bounded to the north and west by the Bristol Channel and the estuary of the...
. He later inherited the lands of the Earl of Thomond
Earl of Thomond
"Earl of Thomond" was a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created twice for the family of Ó Briain. The O'Brien dynasty were an ancient Irish sept native to north Munster....
in Ireland. He was a great patron of art and interested in the latest scientific advances. He was an agriculturist, a friend of Arthur Young, and enthusiastic for canal building, investing in many commercial ventures for the improvement of his estates. He was also not entirely indifferent to politics.
For some time the painter Turner lived at his Sussex residence, Petworth House
Petworth House
Petworth House in Petworth, West Sussex, England, is a late 17th-century mansion, rebuilt in 1688 by Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset, and altered in the 1870s by Anthony Salvin...
, and many painters including John Constable
John Constable
John Constable was an English Romantic painter. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for his landscape paintings of Dedham Vale, the area surrounding his home—now known as "Constable Country"—which he invested with an intensity of affection...
, C R Leslie, George Romney
George Romney (painter)
George Romney was an English portrait painter. He was the most fashionable artist of his day, painting many leading society figures - including his artistic muse, Emma Hamilton, mistress of Lord Nelson....
, the sculptor John Flaxman
John Flaxman
John Flaxman was an English sculptor and draughtsman.-Early life:He was born in York. His father was also named John, after an ancestor who, according to family tradition, had fought for Parliament at the Battle of Naseby, and afterwards settled as a carrier or farmer in Buckinghamshire...
, and other talented artists received commissions from Egremont, who filled his house with valuable works of art. The earl was a sponsor of the Petworth Emigration Scheme
Petworth Emigration Scheme
The Petworth Emigration Scheme, sponsored by the Earl of Egremont and promoted by Thomas Sockett, anglican Rector of Petworth, sent around 1800 working-class people from the south of England to Upper Canada between 1832 and 1837...
intended to relieve rural poverty caused by overpopulation. Generous and hospitable, blunt and eccentric, the earl was in his day a very prominent figure in English society. Charles Greville
Charles Cavendish Fulke Greville
Charles Cavendish Fulke Greville was an English diarist and an amateur cricketer who played first-class cricket from 1819 to 1827...
says, he was "immensely rich and his munificence was equal to his wealth"; and again that "in his time Petworth was like a great inn".
Early life
Egremont was born on 18 December 1751 to Charles Wyndham 2nd Earl of Egremont and the Honourable Alicia Maria Carpenter. He was educated at Wandworth and Westminster SchoolWestminster School
The Royal College of St. Peter in Westminster, almost always known as Westminster School, is one of Britain's leading independent schools, with the highest Oxford and Cambridge acceptance rate of any secondary school or college in Britain...
s. In 1774 he added O'Brien to his name on inheriting extensive estates in Ireland from his uncle the Earl of Thomond
Percy Wyndham-O'Brien, 1st Earl of Thomond
Percy Wyndham-O'Brien, 1st Earl of Thomond was a British Member of Parliament, Irish peer and the younger son of Tory statesman Sir William Wyndham and brother to Sir Charles Wyndham, 2nd Earl of Egremont....
. He went on two grand tours
Grand Tour
The Grand Tour was the traditional trip of Europe undertaken by mainly upper-class European young men of means. The custom flourished from about 1660 until the advent of large-scale rail transit in the 1840s, and was associated with a standard itinerary. It served as an educational rite of passage...
to Italy in the 1770s. At the family's newly built London residence, Egremont House
Cambridge House
Cambridge House is a grade I listed mansion on the northern side of Piccadilly in central London, England. It was built for Charles Wyndham, 2nd Earl of Egremont, by architect Matthew Brettingham in 1756-1761. It was initially known as Egremont House. The house is in a late Palladian style. It has...
, he associated with fashionable Maccaronis
Patron of the arts
Egremont was a patron of painters such as Turner and ConstableJohn Constable
John Constable was an English Romantic painter. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for his landscape paintings of Dedham Vale, the area surrounding his home—now known as "Constable Country"—which he invested with an intensity of affection...
, and sculptor John Flaxman
John Flaxman
John Flaxman was an English sculptor and draughtsman.-Early life:He was born in York. His father was also named John, after an ancestor who, according to family tradition, had fought for Parliament at the Battle of Naseby, and afterwards settled as a carrier or farmer in Buckinghamshire...
who contributed an heroic group of 'Michael overthrowing Satan' for the North Gallery. Turner spent a lot of time at Petworth House and had a studio on an upper floor. He painted landscapes of Petworth, Arundel
Arundel
Arundel is a market town and civil parish in the South Downs of West Sussex in the south of England. It lies south southwest of London, west of Brighton, and east of the county town of Chichester. Other nearby towns include Worthing east southeast, Littlehampton to the south and Bognor Regis to...
, and one of the earl's canal projects, the Chichester Ship Canal. Like his father, the earl also collected French furniture, as when he visited Paris in July 1802 during the Peace of Amiens, buying a pair of five-light candelabra supported by bronze female caryatids with upraised arms and with their legs flanked by seated gryphons holding up the ends of their tunics so as to reveal their feet, supplied by M. E. Lignereux
Transport
Houghton
-Buildings:* Houghton Hall, a country house in Norfolk, England * Houghton Hall, East Riding of Yorkshire, a stately home in Yorkshire, England* Houghton House, a ruined house in Bedfordshire, England-Australia:...
for liming and coal to replace scarce supplies of firewood, releasing more land for food production. The first venture was the Rother Navigation, making the River Rother
River Rother (Western)
The River Rother is a river which flows for thirty miles from Empshott in Hampshire to Stopham in West Sussex, where it joins the River Arun. It should not be confused with the River Rother, in East Sussex....
navigable to Midhurst
Midhurst
Midhurst is a market town and civil parish in the Chichester district of West Sussex, England, with a population of 4,889 in 2001. The town is situated on the River Rother and is home to the ruin of the Tudor Cowdray House and the stately Victorian Cowdray Park...
. Failing to find any reliable contractor to build the navigation during the time of Canal Mania
Canal Mania
Canal Mania is a term used to describe an intense period of canal building in England and Wales between the 1790s and 1810s, and the speculative frenzy that accompanied it in the early 1790s.-Background:...
most of the work was done by the earl's own estate workers. Starting from Stopham
Stopham
Stopham is a hamlet and civil parish in the District of Chichester in West Sussex, England located two kilometres west of Pulborough on the A283 road....
the navigation reached Petworth in 1795 and Midhurst in 1796. A branch to Haslingbourne, south of Petworth, the Petworth Canal
Petworth Canal
The Petworth Canal was one of Britain's shorter lasting canals, opened in 1795 and dismantled in 1826. On completion of the Rother Navigation the Earl of Egremont used his estate workforce to build the 1¼ mile long canal from just upstream of the Shopham Cut to Haslingbourne, with two locks, each...
was then built, initially intended to be extended north to link to the River Wey
River Wey
The River Wey in Surrey, Hampshire and West Sussex is a tributary of the River Thames with two separate branches which join at Tilford. The source of the north branch is at Alton, Hampshire and of the south branch at both Blackdown south of Haslemere, and also close to Gibbet Hill, near Hindhead...
, and initial surveys were conducted. This idea was soon abandoned when the cost of locks needed to reach the north side of Petworth was realised.
In 1796 the earl purchased 36% of the shares in the Arun Navigation Company, saving it from liquidation when it was burdened with the £16,000 cost of building the Coldwaltham
Coldwaltham
Coldwaltham is a village and civil parish in the Horsham District of West Sussex, England. It is divided in two by the A29 road and lies 2.4 miles southwest of Pulborough which has both a railway station on the Arun Valley Line and a bus connection to Worthing...
cut and Hardham
Hardham
Hardham is a small village in the Horsham District of West Sussex, England. It lies on the A29 road 1.2 miles southwest of Pulborough....
tunnel. Having abandoned plans for a canal from Petworth to Shalford
Shalford, Surrey
Shalford is a village in Surrey, England, situated on the busy A281 Horsham road immediately south of Guildford. It has a railway station which is between Guildford and Dorking on the North Downs Line....
and keen for the nation to have an inland waterway linking London and Portsmouth
Portsmouth
Portsmouth is the second largest city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire on the south coast of England. Portsmouth is notable for being the United Kingdom's only island city; it is located mainly on Portsea Island...
, safe from natural hazards to coastal shipping and naval attack by the French, the earl turned his attention to linking the River Arun to the River Wey in Surrey
Surrey
Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...
. The Arun Canal had extended the navigable length of the River Arun to Newbridge on the road from Wisborough Green
Wisborough Green
Wisborough Green is a village and civil parish in the Chichester district of West Sussex, England miles west of Billingshurst on the A272.Newbridge where the A272 crosses the River Arun mile east of the village was the highest point of the Arun navigation, and the southern end of the Wey and Arun...
to Billingshurst
Billingshurst
Billingshurst is a village and civil parish in the Horsham District of West Sussex, England. It lies thirteen kilometres south-west of Horsham, and nine kilometres north-east of Pulborough....
and the Wey and Arun Junction Canal was completed in 1816 to connect to the Godalming Navigation. The completion of the Portsmouth and Arundel Canal
Portsmouth and Arundel Canal
The Portsmouth and Arundel Canal was a canal in the south of England that ran between Portsmouth and Arundel, it was built in 1823 but was never a financial success and was abandoned in 1855, the company was wound up in 1888...
, including the Chichester Ship Canal, in 1823, completed the London to Portsmouth route for barges and also the earl's investment in canal building.
A number of vessels were named Egremont, including a barge on the Arun Navigation, a brigantine
Brigantine
In sailing, a brigantine or hermaphrodite brig is a vessel with two masts, only the forward of which is square rigged.-Origins of the term:...
built at Littlehampton
Littlehampton
Littlehampton is a seaside resort town and civil parish in the Arun District of West Sussex, England, on the east bank at the mouth of the River Arun. It lies south southwest of London, west of Brighton and east of the county town of Chichester....
for coastal trading, but wrecked on the Goodwin Sands
Goodwin Sands
The Goodwin Sands is a 10-mile-long sand bank in the English Channel, lying six miles east off Deal in Kent, England. The Brake Bank lying shorewards is part of the same geological unit. As the shoals lie close to major shipping channels, more than 2,000 ships are believed to have been wrecked...
after only two years, and later a steam tug used to tow barges across Chichester and Langstone harbours for the Portsmouth and Arundel Canal.
Agriculture
War with France and population growth made famine an ever present danger in the early nineteenth century and there was an urgent need to maximise food production using any land that could be cultivated. In the 1820s, emigration, mostly to Canada, was promoted as a means of relieving rural unemployment and poverty. Egremont's protegé Thomas Sockett, Rector of Petworth, promoted the Petworth Emigration SchemePetworth Emigration Scheme
The Petworth Emigration Scheme, sponsored by the Earl of Egremont and promoted by Thomas Sockett, anglican Rector of Petworth, sent around 1800 working-class people from the south of England to Upper Canada between 1832 and 1837...
, which sent 1800 people from Sussex and neighbouring counties to Upper Canada
Upper Canada
The Province of Upper Canada was a political division in British Canada established in 1791 by the British Empire to govern the central third of the lands in British North America and to accommodate Loyalist refugees from the United States of America after the American Revolution...
between 1832 and 1837. The earl sponsored those living on his land by the entire £10 per head cost of the passage if they joined the scheme.
The Reverend Arthur Young stayed at Petworth House while conducting his surveys of agriculture in England. The earl established a pedigree herd of Sussex cattle
Sussex cattle
Sussex cattle are a red breed of beef cattle from the Weald of Sussex, Surrey and Kent in south eastern England. Descended from the draught oxen long used on the Weald they were selectively bred from the late 18th century to form a modern beef breed which is now used in many countries around the...
from the local breed, commended by Arthur Young who wrote that they "must be unquestionably ranked among the best of the kingdom" The herd is maintained at Stag Park to the present day. Devon and Hereford cattle, together with crossbreds were also kept. Different breeds of sheep were tried and exotic Tibetan Shaul goats producing fine wool for hatters.
Stag Park model farm was created in the northern part of Petworth Park on land cleared from scrub and gorse with between 700 and 800 acres divided into fields and drained. Land previously used for producing wood fuel could now be used for food production as wood had been replaced by coal coming by the new canal system. Crop rotations including turnips, tares, wheat, barley, oats and grass were introduced. Potatoes were grown at Petworth and rhubarb as a medicine. More unusually Young describes opium production at Petworth, with juices from the incised poppy heads being scraped into earthenware bowls and dried in the sun. The 1797 crop was the largest grown in England, and was said to be purer than imported opium.
The 24,000 acre estates in Yorkshire at Wressle
Wressle
Wressle is a village and civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England, lying on the eastern bank of the River Derwent approximately north west of Howden.The village is served by a railway station on the Hull to York Line....
and Leconfield
Leconfield
Leconfield is a village and civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It is situated approximately north west of Beverley town centre and lies on the A614 road....
in the East Riding
East Riding
East Riding could be*East Riding of Yorkshire*East Riding of County Cork, Ireland*East Riding of County Galway, Ireland...
, Catton
Catton, North Yorkshire
Catton is a village and civil parish in the Hambleton district of North Yorkshire, England. It is situated between Thirsk and Ripon, on the River Swale....
and Seamer
Seamer, Hambleton
Seamer is a village and civil parish in the Hambleton district of North Yorkshire, England, near the border with the Borough of Stockton-on-Tees and northwest of Stokesley....
in the North Riding, and Spofforth
Spofforth
- People :*Fred Spofforth - Australian cricketer*Reginald Spofforth - Composer...
and Tadcaster
Tadcaster
Tadcaster is a market town and civil parish in the Selby district of North Yorkshire, England. Lying on the Great North Road approximately east of Leeds and west of York. It is the last town on the River Wharfe before it joins the River Ouse about downstream...
in the West Riding were also greatly improved with £26,000 being spent on drainage and fencing alone between 1797 and 1812.
As well as breeding horses and introducing improved machinery, the earl was keen to continue using draught oxen when they were going out of favour elsewhere. Young records that traditional wooden yokes were found by experiment to be superior to horse-style collars.
John Ellman, writing in The History, Antiquities and Topography of the County of Sussex by Thomas Walker Horsfield
Thomas Walker Horsfield
Rev. Thomas Walker Horsfield FSA , was an English Nonconformist minister, topographer, and historian best known for his works The History and Antiquities of Lewes and The History, Antiquities and Topography of the County of Sussex .-Life:He was the eldest of six children of James Horsfield and Ann...
(1835), writes of Egremont:
Horses—This county must not boast of their breed. The Earl of Egremont, with a spirit of liberality which pervades all his actions, gives to farmers, in the neighbourhood of Petworth, the opportunity of breeding from his valuable stud; his lordship also affords the eastern part of the county the same opportunity, by giving the use of one of his best bred horses to Mr. Brown, the venerable training groom at Lewes; his lordship also gives annual premiums to the breeders of the best colts, shewn at Egdean fair, near Petworth.
Egremont bought land at Houghton
Houghton, West Sussex
Houghton is a village and civil parish in the Arun District of West Sussex, England. It is located on the River Arun five kilometres to the north of Arundel...
in 1800 where he developed chalk pits, which Arthur Young reported in 1808 as producing 40,000 tons annually. A canal cut was dug from the River Arun to allow chalk to be moved by barge to lime kilns on higher reaches of the river system, including one at Haslingbourne, south of Petworth.
Other enterprises
Paper mills were established at DunctonDuncton
Duncton is a village and civil parish in the District of Chichester in West Sussex, England located one mile south of Petworth on the A285 road.The parish has a land area of 800.4 hectares...
, south of Petworth and Iping
Iping
Iping is a village in the Chichester district of West Sussex, England. It lies within the civil parish of Stedham with Iping, just off the A272 road 2 miles west of Midhurst. The village lies on the River Rother...
, west of Midhurst. Near Northchapel
Northchapel
Northchapel is a village and civil parish in Chichester District in West Sussex, England.It stands on the A283 road just south of the Surrey border, around 9 km north of Petworth....
a government factory was set up to produce high quality charcoal for making gunpowder by heating alder wood in iron cylinders heated by coal.
At Spofforth in North Yorkshire geologist William Smith
William Smith (geologist)
William 'Strata' Smith was an English geologist, credited with creating the first nationwide geological map. He is known as the "Father of English Geology" for collating the geological history of England and Wales into a single record, although recognition was very slow in coming...
was employed to search for coal and iron ore deposits. £1,000 was invested in sinking test wells through 1803 and 1804, including the use of steam engines to pump out water. Six thin veins of coal were found but nothing of commercial value.
Horse racing
Egremont maintained a racing stud near LewesLewes
Lewes is the county town of East Sussex, England and historically of all of Sussex. It is a civil parish and is the centre of the Lewes local government district. The settlement has a history as a bridging point and as a market town, and today as a communications hub and tourist-oriented town...
and had his first winner at Lewes in 1777. Assassin won the Derby
Epsom Derby
The Derby Stakes, popularly known as The Derby, internationally as the Epsom Derby, and under its present sponsor as the Investec Derby, is a Group 1 flat horse race in Great Britain open to three-year-old thoroughbred colts and fillies...
in 1782, the first of five Derby winners and five Oaks
Epsom Oaks
The Oaks Stakes is a Group 1 flat horse race in Great Britain open to three-year-old thoroughbred fillies. It is run at Epsom Downs over a distance of 1 mile, 4 furlongs and 10 yards , and it is scheduled to take place each year in early June....
winners.
Politics
Egremont was a member of the Whig party. In 1787 he bought the pocket borough of MidhurstMidhurst (UK Parliament constituency)
Midhurst was a parliamentary borough in Sussex, which elected two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons from 1311 until 1832, and then one member from 1832 until 1885, when the constituency was abolished...
and used it to return his two younger brothers, Charles and Percy, to the House of Commons. Charles only served one parliament for Midhurst and by 1796 the seat had been sold on to Lord Carrington. When the party split in 1792 over the French Revolution he sided with the more conservative faction who supported Prime Minister William Pitt
William Pitt the Younger
William Pitt the Younger was a British politician of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He became the youngest Prime Minister in 1783 at the age of 24 . He left office in 1801, but was Prime Minister again from 1804 until his death in 1806...
in his condemnation of the "wicked and seditious" writings of radicals such as Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine
Thomas "Tom" Paine was an English author, pamphleteer, radical, inventor, intellectual, revolutionary, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States...
. He was opposed to the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1832 which introduced the harsh workhouse
Workhouse
In England and Wales a workhouse, colloquially known as a spike, was a place where those unable to support themselves were offered accommodation and employment...
system. When William Hawley the Sussex Poor Law Commission
Poor Law Commission
The Poor Law Commission was a body established to administrate poor relief after the passing of the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834. The commission was made up of three commissioners who became known as "The Bashaws of Somerset House", their secretary and nine clerks or assistant commissioners...
er visited Petworth House in October 1835 he was politely received but informed that the earl considered the Act "one of the worst measures that could have been devised".
While Egremont may have remained aloof from day to day affairs, his secretary Thomas Sockett, Rector of Petworth, was deeply involved with poor relief and emigration, and became engaged in bitter disputes with the commissioner over provision of relief to Petworth paupers and the running of the Petworth Emigration Scheme. There was coverage in the national press and Sockett, together with other witnesses from Petworth, gave evidence to a House Of Commons Select Committee in March 1837.
Military
A YeomanryYeomanry
Yeomanry is a designation used by a number of units or sub-units of the British Territorial Army, descended from volunteer cavalry regiments. Today, Yeomanry units may serve in a variety of different military roles.-History:...
force was revived at Petworth House in 1795 "in case of invasion or internal commotion", reflecting aristocratic nervousness following the French revolution. Composed of landowners and tenant farmers this cavalry force was naturally commanded by the most powerful landowner, the earl himself. Volunteers provided their own horse while the government paid for maintenance and basic equipment. Egremont himself bought extra arms, helmets, cloaks and feathers from London. Volunteers gained exemptions from taxes on horses, hair powder
Duty on Hair Powder Act 1795
Duty on Hair Powder Act 1795 was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain levying a tax on hair powder. It was repealed in 1869....
and from road tolls. By 1798 the force had fifty two members.
Petworth
Egremont financed the building of a market house at Petworth in 1793 on the market square where bulls had previously been tied to a stake for baiting by dogs. The earl ended this cruel practice and also the practice of "throwing at cocks", which involved throwing wooden staves at cockerels, the thrower winning a bird if it was stunned or had its legs broken. This had been done at the Midhurst road turning. The Market House or Town Hall was built of stone and adorned at the northern end with a bust of William III.The earl provided land in 1784 for a new House of Correction, to replace the previous gaol, which had been a squalid place consisting of two unheated rooms and unable to be enlarged to provide the work which was considered essential for the moral improvement of inmates. Delays were caused by petitioning by rate payers against the costs they would have to bear. Thirty two cells in two storeys were built over brick arch arcades to prevent tunnelling out, and the institution opened in 1788 near the present police station and court house. Prisoners were kept in strict solitary confinement, never allowed to speak to each other; even when in chapel they were in individual high sided box pews. Exercise in the outside yards, called "airing", was also done individually.
Town gas
Coal gas
Coal gas is a flammable gaseous fuel made by the destructive distillation of coal containing a variety of calorific gases including hydrogen, carbon monoxide, methane and volatile hydrocarbons together with small quantities of non-calorific gases such as carbon dioxide and nitrogen...
was introduced in 1836 when a gas works was built in Station Road, using coal brought to Coultershaw wharf by barge and later by rail to Petworth railway station
Petworth railway station
Petworth railway station was a railway station nearly two miles from the town of Petworth in West Sussex, England.It was located on the former London, Brighton and South Coast Railway single track Pulborough to Midhurst branch line...
. A monument which stands at the north end of East Street was given by the townspeople to show their gratitude to the earl.
The second-hand spire which Egremont bought from a Brighton church for St Mary's Church became crooked and was taken down in the 20th century, but the great wall which he had built around Petworth Park is still a feature of the area. Built of sandstone masonry over two metres tall, some fourteen miles of wall surrounds the park and subdivides it into three parts, the deer park in the south, then a large area of woodland, with farmland and woods in the northern part. The stone road which runs the length of the park to emerge at the junction of the Ebernoe
Ebernoe
Ebernoe is a hamlet and civil parish in the District of Chichester in West Sussex, England located six kilometres north of Petworth near the A283 road.The parish has a land area of 1239 hectares...
road with the A283 once continued northward, passing to the east of Northchapel
Northchapel
Northchapel is a village and civil parish in Chichester District in West Sussex, England.It stands on the A283 road just south of the Surrey border, around 9 km north of Petworth....
and through Frith Wood to rejoin the A283 London road at a pair of gatehouses which still stand to the north of Northchapel village. This road provided a private bypass of the toll gate at Northchapel for the earl's family and friends.
Personal life
As a young man in London Egremont gave a gilded coach to Mlle Rosalie DuthéRosalie Duthé
Catherine-Rosalie Gerard Duthé was a celebrated French courtesan. A companion of French kings and European nobility, she has been called "the first officially recorded dumb blonde." Duthé was an often requested subject for portraits, including partial and full nudes, many of which still exist in...
, sometimes called "the first officially recorded dumb blonde", a French courtesan who had moved to London during the French revolution, with whom he was frequently seen at the opera. He was later close to Lady Melbourne
Elizabeth Lamb, Viscountess Melbourne
Elizabeth Lamb, Viscountess Melbourne was an English political hostess and the wife of Whig politician Peniston Lamb, 1st Viscount Melbourne. She was the mother of William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne who became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom...
whose son William Lamb
William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne
William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, PC, FRS was a British Whig statesman who served as Home Secretary and Prime Minister . He is best known for his intense and successful mentoring of Queen Victoria, at ages 18-21, in the ways of politics...
, later Prime Minister, was widely regarded as Egremont's son and was said to look remarkably like him. Lamb often spent time at Petworth House as a child and continued to visit Egremont until the end of the earl's life. Egremont called off a planned marriage to Lady Maria Walpole, a granddaughter of Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole
Robert Walpole
Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, KG, KB, PC , known before 1742 as Sir Robert Walpole, was a British statesman who is generally regarded as having been the first Prime Minister of Great Britain....
Egremont inherited the recently built Egremont House
Cambridge House
Cambridge House is a grade I listed mansion on the northern side of Piccadilly in central London, England. It was built for Charles Wyndham, 2nd Earl of Egremont, by architect Matthew Brettingham in 1756-1761. It was initially known as Egremont House. The house is in a late Palladian style. It has...
in Piccadilly
Piccadilly
Piccadilly is a major street in central London, running from Hyde Park Corner in the west to Piccadilly Circus in the east. It is completely within the city of Westminster. The street is part of the A4 road, London's second most important western artery. St...
and it was known as a haunt of Macaroni
Macaroni (fashion)
A macaroni in mid-18th century England, was a fashionable fellow who dressed and even spoke in an outlandishly affected and epicene manner. The term pejoratively referred to a man who "exceeded the ordinary bounds of fashion" in terms of clothes, fastidious eating and gambling...
s. As his country base he hired Stansted House during 1775 and 1776 while renovation work was in progress at Petworth House. He also spent much time at Brighton where he had a house in Kemptown
Kemptown
Kemptown is a small community running along the King's Cliff to Black Rock in the east of Brighton, East Sussex, England.-History:The area takes its name from Thomas Read Kemp's Kemp Town residential estate of the early 19th Century, but the one-word name now refers to an area larger than the...
, East Lodge on the east side of Upper Rock Gardens. He attended Brighton and Lewes races and visited the Prince Regent
George IV of the United Kingdom
George IV was the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and also of Hanover from the death of his father, George III, on 29 January 1820 until his own death ten years later...
at the Royal Pavilion
Royal Pavilion
The Royal Pavilion is a former royal residence located in Brighton, England. It was built in three campaigns, beginning in 1787, as a seaside retreat for George, Prince of Wales, from 1811 Prince Regent. It is often referred to as the Brighton Pavilion...
. Egremont was known for his philanthropy, being a founding subscriber of the Royal Sussex Hospital.
Egremont maintained around fifteen mistresses who had more than forty children between them at Petworth House. It is recorded that the peace of the household would often be disturbed by disputes between the children, with their respective mothers joining in. The children, of the more favoured mistresses at least, especially those of Elizabeth Ilive, were educated by Thomas Sockett, a protegé of the earl who became Rector of Petworth while also acting as the earl's secretary. On 16 July 1801 Egremont married Elizabeth Ilive, already having seven illegitimate children by her. Their eighth child, Elizabeth, died in infancy and Ilive left Petworth after this to live in London. He also had four or five children with Elizabeth Fox and many others by other women.
In earlier centuries a horse fair was held at Egdean
Egdean
Egdean is a tiny village in the Chichester district of West Sussex, England. It lies just off the A272 road 1.7 miles southeast of Petworth....
in early September. It was one of the last occasions on which Egremont was seen out in public before he died. The earl gave a £20 prize for the best three year old colt or filly.
The earl died at Petworth House on 11 November 1837. He was succeeded by his nephew George Francis Wyndham, 4th Earl of Egremont who inherited the Somerset estates, and on whose death the Earldom of Egremont became extinct. Petworth, however, and estates in Yorkshire and Ireland passed to Colonel George Wyndham, the eldest natural son of the third Earl. In 1859 he was created Baron Leconfield
Baron Leconfield
Baron Leconfield, of Leconfield in the East Riding of the County of York, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1859 for George Wyndham. He was the eldest natural son and adopted heir of George Wyndham, 3rd Earl of Egremont...
. Henry Wyndham inherited the family lands in Cumberland
Cumberland
Cumberland is a historic county of North West England, on the border with Scotland, from the 12th century until 1974. It formed an administrative county from 1889 to 1974 and now forms part of Cumbria....
.
Children
Children by Elizabeth Ilive;- George Wyndham, 1st Baron LeconfieldGeorge Wyndham, 1st Baron LeconfieldGeorge Wyndham, 1st Baron Leconfield , was a British soldier and peer.A direct descendant of Sir John Wyndham, he was the eldest natural son of George O'Brien Wyndham, 3rd Earl of Egremont, and Elizabeth Ilive. He entered the British Army and achieved the rank of Colonel. His parents were married...
(5 June 1787–18 March 1869) - Frances Wyndham (1789–1848)
- General Sir Henry WyndhamHenry Wyndham (1790-1860)General Sir Henry Wyndham KCB was a British Army General and Conservative Party politician. He was Member of Parliament for Cockermouth from 1852 to 1857 and for West Cumberland from 1857 to until his death in 1860....
(12 May 1790–3 August 1860) - Edward Wyndham (1792–1792)
- William Wyndham (1793–1794)
- Charlotte Henrietta Wyndham (1795–1870)
- Charles Wyndham (1796–18 February 1866)
- The Lady Elizabeth Wyndham (b. & d. 1803)
Children by Elizabeth Fox;
- Charles Crole Wyndham
- Laura Crole Wyndham
- William John Crole Wyndham
- Mary Wyndham (29 August 1792–3 December 1842), married the 1st Earl of MunsterGeorge FitzClarence, 1st Earl of MunsterGeorge Augustus Frederick FitzClarence, 1st Earl of Munster PC , was the eldest natural son of William IV of the United Kingdom and his long-time mistress Dorothy Jordan....
and had issue.