1. From George, 1st Lord Lyttleton.
2. From Rev John ‘Orator’ Henley.
5. From George James (‘Gilly’)Williams..
8. From Madame La Marquise de Stainville.
9. From Charles Townshend, n.d..
15. From Mr. Rogers
Selwyn 12: Letter from the Earl of Egremont
This is an invitation written on a cut rectangle of thick card about the size of a contemporary visiting-card. It is not so much for the content, but the neat writing and the use of capitals for so many words. Much of this was fairly common at the time, but it is interesting to compare with other letters. Note the spelling of Wednesday.
Judging by the order of this card in the album's sequence, it would have been written about 1770.
Notes:
George O'Brien Wyndham, 3rd Earl of Egremont FRS (18 December 1751 — 11 November 1837) had two main residences; Petworth House in Sussex and Orchard Wyndham in Somerset. He was interested in the latest scientific advances, an agriculturist and a friend of the agricultural writer Arthur Young and was an enthusiastic canal builder. In 1763 at the age of 12, he succeeded to his father's titles and estates at Petworth, Egremont in Cumbria, Leconfield with further land in Wiltshire and also the large estates at Orchard Wyndham in Somerset, the family's oldest possession. He later inherited the lands of the Earl of Thomond in Ireland. Following the order of the day, he went on two grand tours to Italy in the 1770s. Although not a great politician, Wyndham was a member of the Whig party. He was a great patron of art and the painter Turner lived for a while at his Sussex seat of Petworth House. Several other painters including John Constable, C. R. Leslie, George Romney, the sculptor John Flaxman, and other talented artists received commissions from Wyndham, who filled his house with valuable works of art.
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. Thomas Sockett, Rector of Petworth and Wyndham's protégé, promoted the Petworth Emigration Scheme, which sent 1,800 people from Sussex and neighbouring counties to Upper Canada between 1832 and 1837.
Egremont maintained around 15 mistresses and fathered more than 40 illegitimate children at Petworth House, the only legitimate one died in infancy. Lord Egremont was succeeded in the earldom by his nephew.
