Nathaniel Albert Hunt and the Earl of Ellesmere

A carte-de-visite portrait of Cambridge students Nathaniel Albert Hunt and Francis Egerton, 3rd Earl of Ellesmere.

Born on 16 April 1841, Nathaniel Albert Hunt was the second son of William Hunt of Bath. Following his education at a private school and Bath and at Giessen University in Germany, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge, on 4 June 1863. On 27 March 1865 he was initiated into the Freemasons at the Isaac Newton University Lodge. He graduated BA in 1867. On 14 November 1865 he was admitted to the Inner Temple and was called to the bar on 30 April 1869. He subsequently practised as a barrister on the Western Circuit before ill-health necessitated his early retirement.

On the night of the 1871 census he was one of several barristers staying at the Royal Hotel on College Green in Bristol.

When the census was taken in 1881 he was living at the home of his father in Bath at 72 Pulteney Street. He gave ‘Barrister-at-law, not practising’ as his profession. His father described himself as ‘Licentiate of the Co of Apothecaries & Alderman.’

Nathaniel Albert Hunt died, aged only 42, at Sevier House in Leamington on 7 November 1883. He left an estate valued at £860.

Born in London on 5 April 1847, Francis Charles Granville Egerton was the eldest son of George Egerton, 2nd Earl of Ellesmere. He attended Eton, initially as Viscount Brackley until he succeeded to his estates and title on the death of his father in 1862, before going up to Trinity in the Michaelmas term of 1865, where he graduated BA in 1868. He rose to the rank of Captain in the service of the Duke of Lancester’s Own Yeomanry. In 1891 he received command of the regiment. That same year he became Honorary Colonel of the 4th Volunteer Battalion of the Manchester Regiment.

On 9 December 1868, he married Lady Katherine Louisa Phipps, second daughter of George Phipps, 2nd Marquess of Normanby. Their marriage produced eleven children.

Lord Ellesmere died at Bridgewater House, St James’s, on 13 July 1914, leaving an estate valued at £250,000.

Photographed by William Farren of Cambridge.