26 THE JOCKEY CLUB 1750- 



member of the Jockey Club, though he hardly lived 

 long enough to leave proofs of his membership. 



He was undoubtedly a scapegrace ; and it is re- 

 corded that he left an annuity to a dwarf, whom he 

 used to take about with him and ' shy ' about like a 

 ball, as fancy prompted him in his cups. Still he 

 must have had his good points (though Horace Wal- 

 pole would be blind to them), for he had gone in his 

 twenty-first year as a volunteer to North America, 

 whence he was recalled by his father's death in 1778. 



The Duke of Bridgewater of the list is Francis, 

 the third Duke, who was born in 1736 and died un- 

 married in 1803, having succeeded his (also unmarried) 

 brother in 1748. So that he was just twenty-two 

 when he appended his signature to the first public 

 document issued by the Jockey Club. This was in 

 1758. He was also one of the subscribers to the 

 Jockey Club Challenge Cup in 1768, and he ran 

 Vampire for a Jockey Club Plate in 1764, &c, proving 

 himself to have been an active member of the Club. 

 He also bred a famous Cullen Arabian mare, dam of 

 Stripling, Grasshopper, Glancer, Spectre, and of the 

 filly which became the dam of Punch (imported by 

 Mr. Powers into America in 1799) ; but it was his 

 father, Duke Scroop, who possessed the famous Ball 

 (Mr. Astridge's), about the best horse of his clay 

 (1716-8). Duke Francis was probably of more account 

 in other lines than in horse-racing, for he it was who 

 was the ' Father of Canals,' and endowed the ' Bridge- 



