THE JOCKEY CLUB IN THE DAYS OF CHARLES JAMES FOX. 



26 5 



Jockey Club, which he occupied the remainder of his life in vilifying, until he died in 

 the Sumpter Prison, where he had been confined for debt. Sir James Lowther, 

 created Earl of Lonsdale in 1784, was a more attractive figure, though not a very 

 popular one. He was son of the Governor of the Barbados, and inherited his sporting 

 instincts from his Lonsdale grandmother, whose family are well known to the 

 Stud Book through the White-legged Lowther Barb, the Lonsdale Bay Arabian, and 

 others. He won the Jockey Club Plate of 1757 with Jason, and that of 1763 

 with Ascham, besides making a 

 sporting offer to back his Mirza 

 for ten thousand guineas against 

 Snap. 



The first public document issued 

 by the Club in 1758 contains the 

 signature of another racing man 

 whose name will be familiar to us, 

 Francis, third Duke of Bridgewater, 

 who succeeded his brother in 1748. 

 His father's Ashridge Ball had been 

 a famous horse in 1717, and he 

 himself owned a Cullen Arabian 

 mare, who was the dam of Stripling, 

 Grasshopper, Glancer, and Spectre. 

 A portion of his great wealth went 

 towards the foundation of the canals 

 and of the treatises with which his 

 name is still connected ; but he had 

 no direct heir to whom to pass it on, for his heart it seems was never able to 

 recover from the shock of being refused by the beautiful Miss Gunning. This lovely 

 Irish lady was evidently fond of racing, for it was to a brother member of the 

 unlucky Duke that she was first married, and her husband, the sixth Duke of Hamil- 

 ton, was one of the few gentlemen-jockeys who could ride as well as the notorious 

 Earl of March. I have no doubt that she was among the company who applauded 

 " James's" victories both at Newmarket and York. 



Another early member, who was half Royal in descent, though not at all by title, 

 was Augustus Henry Fitzroy, third Duke of Grafton, whose inheritance of Euston 



VOL. II. N N 



Francis, third Duke 

 of Bridgewater. 



