Francis Egerton, 1st Earl of Ellesmere

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Francis Egerton, 1st Earl of Ellesmere KG PC (1 January 1800–18 February 1857) was the second son of the 1st Duke of Sutherland and his wife, Elizabeth.

He was known by his patronymic as Lord Francis Leveson-Gower until 1833, when 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. Educated at Eton and at Christ Church, Oxford, he entered Parliament soon after attaining his majority as member for the pocket borough of Bletchingly in Surrey. He afterwards sat for Sutherland and for South Lancashire, which he represented when he was elevated to the peerage as Viscount Brackley, of Brackley in the County of Northampton, and Earl of Ellesmere in 1846.

In politics he was a moderate Conservative of independent views, as was shown by his supporting the proposal for establishing the University of London, by his making and carrying a motion for the endowment of the Roman Catholic clergy in Ireland, and by his 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.

His 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 his very agreeably written Mediterranean Sketches (1843), and in the notes to a poem entitled The Pilgrimage. He published several other works in prose and verse, all displaying a fine literary taste. His literary reputation secured for him the position of rector of the University of Aberdeen in 1841.

Lord Ellesmere was a munificent and yet discriminating patron of artists. To the splendid collection of pictures which he inherited from his great-uncle, the 3rd Duke of Bridgewater, he made numerous additions, and he built a noble 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, and he was a trustee of the National Gallery. He was succeeded by his son (1823-1862) as 2nd Earl, and his grandson (b. 1847) as 3rd Earl. On the extinction of the senior line of the Dukedom of Sutherland in 1963, his great-great-grandson, the 5th Earl, succeeded as 6th Duke of Sutherland.

Ellesmere Island was named after him.

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by: Marquess of Titchfield and Edward Edwardes	Member for Bletchingley with Edward Edwardes 1822–1826	Succeeded by: Edward Edwardes William Russell
Preceded by: George Macpherson-Grant	Member for Sutherland 1826–1831	Succeeded by: Sir Hugh Innes
Preceded by: George Wood and Viscount Molyneux	Member for South Lancashire with Richard Bootle-Wilbraham 1835-44, William Entwistle 1844-47 1835–1846	Succeeded by: William Entwistle and William Brown
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: Henry Hardinge	Secretary at War 1830	Succeeded by: Charles Williams-Wynn