44 
SOME OF THE FOUNDERS OF THE SOCIETY. 
when lie came of age, as Lord Milton, the festivities celebrated on the 
properties, to which he was lieir, corresponded in their largesse with the 
amount of their inheritance. Being the sole offspring of his parents, 
his prospective property, with its responsibilities, was a very serious 
charge to contemplate . In the earlier history of the Fitzwilliam family, 
we find them owning the Sprotborough estate, near Doncaster ; but in 
the Tudor days, their principal seat, purchased in 1500, was at Milton, 
near Peterborough, where the mansion is a most interesting house, of 
much architectural beauty, and still showing no signs of dilapidation 
or decay in the fine oolitic stone of which it is built. 
The grandfather of the nobleman of whom we write married in 
1744 Lady Anne Watson "Wentwortli, eldest daughter of the Manpiis 
of Rockingham ; and her son William, fourth Earl Fitzwilliam, 
inherited from his uncle, Charles, second Marquis of Rockingham and 
Lady Anne Wentworth's brother, the vast Wentwortli property and 
the L'ish estates, both of which had belonged to the great Lord 
Strafford and his son. The manors of Ecclesall, Bingiey, and 
Badsworth, were included in the dowry of Miss Bright, who married 
the second Marquis, and left no family, and so they passed to his 
nephew, the fourth Earl. The Malton estate must also be included 
in this great inheritance ; but it was not merely the wide acreage of 
land that constituted the value of these possessions, for underneath 
much of the soil were beds of coal and iron which had only been 
superficially worked, and therefore still contained a mine of wealth. 
The whole properties were a magnificent succession for an only son, 
and his majority had to be duly celebrated. 
The writer has a friend, now in his ninety-third year, who well 
remembers being taken by his father into Y/ entworth Park, to witness 
the unlimited hospitality that was dispensed on the occasion of Lord 
Milton coming of age. It was a literal fulfihnent of the invitation 
given to all comers by a Fitzwilliam, Lord of Eimsley and Sprotborough, 
which was formerly engraved on a cross that stood in the High street 
of the village:— 
" Whoso is hungry and IibLs to eate, 
Let him come to Sprotburgh to his meate ; 
And for a night, and for a day, 
His horse shall have both corn and hay, 
And no man shall ask him when he goeth away." 
