ABSTRACT
Francis Egerton, third and last Duke of Bridgewater, who has somewhat incongruously been called 'the first great Manchester man', and held up to posterity as a pattern nobleman, disliked writing letters. His father, Scroop Egerton, the first Duke, died in 1745, and only one of Francis's four consumptive elder brothers lived long enough to hold the title. On the death of his last brother, Francis succeeded to the dukedom in 1748, shortly before his twelfth birthday. In March 1753 still awkward and unmanly, he was sent on the Grand Tour of France and Italy under the tutelage of Robert Wood, the traveller and dilettante, who introduced the ruins of Palmyra and Baalbek to the English reading public. The successful completion of his first enterprise led the Duke to employ Brindley on a much more ambitious one, for which an Act of Parliament was obtained in 1762.
