EGERTON, William (1749-1806), of Tatton Park, Cheshire.

Egerton, who in the previous Parliament had supported Pitt, unsuccessfully contested Beverley in 1790, on the interest of his brother-in-law Sir Christopher Sykes. He stood for Newcastle-under-Lyme on the 1st Marquess of Stafford’s interest at a by-election in 1792, winning the seat on scrutiny. Little evidence survives of parliamentary activity: he presented a petition from his constituents in favour of the seditious meetings and treasonable practices bills, 3 Dec. 1795, and impugned a previous one opposing the bills. He was regarded as a supporter of administration, though he voted against the second reading of Pitt’s land tax redemption bill on 23 Apr. 1798.

In November 1801 Egerton was known to be aspiring to represent his county in place of Crewe, the retiring Member. He came in unopposed in 1802. No vote against Addington’s ministry is known, but he was listed a steward for Pitt’s birthday dinner in May 1802 and a Pittite in March 1804. On 30 May 1804 he opposed the hasty introduction, in a thin House, of a bill to abolish the slave trade. He was listed ‘doubtful Pitt’ in September 1804 and in July 1805, but no vote against the ministry is known. He certainly opposed the salt duty on ‘the most positive instructions from his constituents in Cheshire’, 19 Feb., 4 Mar. 1805. He also presented a Stockport manufacturers’ petition against the corn bill, 25 Feb. 1805, and supported the calico printers’ petition, 30 May, objecting only that it came too late in the session. On 3 Mar. 1806 he opposed the Grenville ministry on Ellenborough’s seat in the cabinet. He died ‘of a rapid dropsy’, 21 Apr. 1806, one of the foremost commoners in the kingdom. Reckoned worth over £20,000 p.a., he was then rebuilding Tatton and maintained a ‘large establishment in St James’s Square’. He buried four wives and was father of William Tatton and of Wilbraham Egerton, Member for Cheshire from 1812.1The Times, 18 Nov. 1801; Gent. Mag. (1806), i. 391.