1773 THE MISTERS 149 



Club Plate in 1753 (the first year of the Club's career], 

 is called in the ' Calendar ' Mr. Roger Wilbraham, so 

 that the gentleman was presumably he who was of 

 Nantwich, Cheshire, M.P. (son, to all appearance, or 

 nephew, of Roger Wilbraham, Esq., High Sheriff 

 of Cheshire in 1714), and seems to have been the 

 founder of the branch of the Wilbrahams of Delamere. 

 The name also appears in the c Calendar ' with the 

 prefix or affix (indifferently) of Bootle ; whence one 

 would conclude that there were two relations racing 

 at the same time, for it seems to have been a Richard 

 (not Roger) Wilbraham who became Wilbraham- 

 Bootle or Bootle-Wilbraham (according to the will of 

 Sir Thomas Bootle, whose heiress he married appa- 

 rently), and was the father of the first Lord Skelmers- 

 dale. Anyhow, Mr. Roger Wilbraham is not among 

 the most prominent members of the Jockey Club and 

 promoters of ' the cause.' 



Such were the most conspicuous among the royal- 

 ties, noblemen, and gentlemen who composed the 

 Jockey Club from its entrance upon public life up to 

 the year 1773. They were, almost to a man, of royal 

 or noble or hereditarily gentle birth ; and they 

 were, almost to a man, either hereditary or elective 

 legislators, for nearly all the commoners, or at any 

 rate a large proportion of them, were Members 

 of Parliament. To them, as we have seen, not only 

 nearly all the imported ' Sons of the Desert ' (which 

 were about that time, however, beginning to lose the 



