246 THE JOCKEY CLUB 1773— 



It has been mentioned that in 1771 Mr. Eichard 

 Vernon, the oracle of Newmarket and of the Jockey 

 Club, had purchased (for a term of sixty years) the 

 lease of the ground on which the Coffee Boom was 

 built and of that on which the New Eooms were 

 erected subsequently, and that in the same year the 

 Stewards and as many members of the Club as chose 

 to subscribe became Mr. Vernon's tenants, under an 

 agreement to pay him an annual rent ; he for his part 

 having entered into a compact to build rooms for the 

 Club. In 1831, of course, Mr. Vernon's lease expired, 

 and the freehold of the lots comprising the Coffee 

 Eoom, the New Eooms, and adjuncts thereof, was 

 purchased (with money advanced, it is said, by the 

 ' Tiresias ' Duke of Portland, father of Lord G. 

 Bentinck) of the Erratts (a well-known Newmarket 

 family of stablemen, grooms, jockeys, trainers, and 

 the like), and the estate was conveyed (in trust) to 

 Lord Lowther, the Duke of Eichmond, and the Earl 

 of Verulam, who were presumably the Stewards for 

 the time being. 



Meanwhile the Inclosure Acts of George II., 

 whereby, it has been calculated, ' ten thousand square 

 miles of untilled land were added under their opera- 

 tion to the area of cultivation,' enabled the Club to 

 acquire certain portions of Newmarket Heath. The 

 Acts which particularly concerned the Club were the 

 Swaffham Bulbeck Act of 1798, 'for allotting, drain- 

 ing, &c, waste lands, &c, in the Parish of Swaffham 



