Bridgewater/Sutherland/Ellesmere, Dukes & Earls of, landed estates

Notes:

Traced origins as owners of important industrial assets to the hugely valuable and productive estates to the 3rd Duke of Bridgewater, aka the 'Canal Duke', 1736-1803. The latter developed his family's [the Egerton family] landed estates, most notably the coal bearing lands at Worsley, Salford. He achieved this through the construction of pioneering canals, notably the Bridgewater Canal, linking Worsley with Manchester and later Runcorn and Leigh, which were designed by the leading canal engineer, James Brindley. They were largely complete by the early 1770s; the Bridgewater Canal is reckoned Britain's first modern canal. As a result, the Duke accumulated huge wealth. On his death, with no direct male heir, his title became extinct and his estates passed into the administration of trustees for the benefit of the Leveson Gower family, notably the Marquess of Stafford, later Duke of Sutherland and the Earl of Ellesmere. This trust expired as late as 1903 after which the estates became the property of the Earls of Ellesmere. Note: the Leveson Gower family also had important and longstanding landed estates and industrial interests, notably the Lilleshall Co Ltd. The Leveson family's wealth originated from the very important Wolverhampton wool merchant, James Leveson, who acquired large estates in Staffordshire [based on Trentham Priory] and Shopshire [Lilleshall]. The Gower line owned lesser estates in North Yorkshire. The two families were linked in marriage in 1631 and their estates were combined in 1689. They subsequently acquired much additional land, especially in Scotland, through marriage. They gradually rose in prominence from baronets, to Marquess of Stafford and, in 1833, to Dukes of Sutherland