Nat Gould

Charles Egerton 1686-1747

Charles Egerton was born in 1686, the son of the Reverend Thomas Egerton 1647-1720 Rector of Adstock in Buckinghamshire and his wife nee Elizabeth Butterfield. He was baptised on 30 December 1686 at Adstock (1).

He was a merchant in London, and a freeman of the Haberdashers' Company.

On 6 December 1745 he made his son John Egerton a freeman of the Company. He was also a London merchant, then living at Friday Street in the City of London (2). He had by that date purchased a country estate at Hadley in Middlesex (3).

Charles Egerton married three times. His first wife was Sarah Stebbing. She was born in 1689, and died in May 1730 aged 41 years. She was buried at Hadley, where there was a monument inscribed to her memory. They had the following children (4):

Charles Egerton. He predeceased his father, being dead when his father made his Will on 27 March 1747.

Stebbing Egerton. He married Mary (maiden surname unknown), and died on 27 December 1778. His wife died on 24 August 1783. Both were buried at Barnet in Hertfordshire, near Hadley.

John Egerton 1724-1789.

Sarah Egerton. She was married to Thomas Spicer by the time when her father made his Will in 1747.

Elizabeth Egerton. She was unmarried.

Charles Egerton married as his second wife Elizabeth (maiden surname unknown). She was born in 1686, and died on 8 June 1738 aged 52 years. She was buried at Hadley, where there was a monument inscribed to her memory.

His third wife was Agnes Southern, whom he married on 29 November 1746. She died in 1764, and was buried at Hadley on 14 May 1764. She was the daughter of Thomas Southern, the dramatist and friend of Dryden and Congreve (5).

Charles Egerton died on 6 April 1747 aged 60 years, and was buried at Hadley, where there was a monument inscribed to his memory.

(1) Monken Hadley F.C. Cass (1880) page 180.
(2) Register of the Freedoms of the Haberdashers' Company Book 1 folio 424 dated 6 August 1789.
(3) The first mention of his Hadley estate is his purchase of property on the Common in April 1739, but he had presumably bought the estate by 1730 when his first wife was buried at Hadley. The property purchased in 1739 was eventually sold on 18 November 1791 by the children of his son John Egerton 1724-1789: Monken Hadley F.C. Cass (1880) page 180.
(4) The details on the wives and children are taken from Monken Hadley F.C. Cass (1880) page 180.
(5) It was Thomas Southern who introduced Congreve to Dryden: Introduction to the Literature of Europe H. Hallam volume 3 (1839) pages 525-526.