FITZWILLIAM (MILTON) MISCELLANEOUS VOLUMES

The 'Miscellaneous volumes' collection includes rentals, surveys, estate accounts, court books and printed works. With late 16th C./early 17th C. household accounts, also 1690s and 17715-1826, kitchen accounts 1584-1591, servants' wages 1628-1638 and 1772-1826. Estate and household accounts for Setchey (Norfolk), 17th C./early 18th C. Building accounts for Dogsthorpe 1579-1601 and Milton 1750/51. The 1st Earl's notebooks or almanacs. Travel journals, Low Countries and France 1663, voyage to East Indies 1672-1674, France, Italy, Bavaria, early/mid 19th C. Personal account books and bank books of the 4th and 5th Earls 1772-1855. Nassaburgh Hundred Subsidy assessments, 1580s, 1590s. Parliamentary journals 1640/41; Peterborough charity accounts 1740s, 1790s; election accounts for Lord Burford at Hull 1790, Higham Ferrers 1812-1831. Lucy Hutchinson's book of advice to her daughter 1731.

Estates in Marholm, Castor, Peterborough, Etton, Northborough, Helpston, Maxey, Lolham, Wansford and Stibbington (Huntingdonshire) and Great Gidding (Huntingdonshire). The Higham Ferrers estate also included properties in the Harrowdens, Irthlingborough, Rushden, Finedon, Hargrave and Orlingbury and Covington, Bythorn and Great Catworth (Huntingdonshire). Extensive estates in the West Riding area of Yorkshire.

Archives of the Earls Fitzwilliam, the Marquises of Rockingham and the Lords Godolphin.

Sir William Fitzwilliam, a London merchant, purchased the manors of Milton and Marholm in 1502. His grandson, the 3rd Sir William, was Vice Treasurer of Ireland 1571-1575 and then Lord Deputy of Ireland 1588-1594. He was also Keeper of Fotheringhay Castle at the time of the Queen of Scots' trial and execution. The Lord Deputy is likely to have begun the present mansion at Milton. The 5th Sir William (d.1644) was made Lord Fitzwilliam in 1620. William, the 3rd Lord, was created Earl Fitzwilliam in 1716. The 2nd Earl's daughter Anne married Francis 2nd Lord Godolphin (d.1785).

William the 3rd Earl (d.1756) made the defining marriage of the family with Lady Anne Watson Wentworth the sister and heiress of the 2nd Marquis of Rockingham. The family had large estates in Yorkshire and at Higham Ferrers and the Harrowdens in Northamptonshire. The 2nd Marquis was Prime Minister 1765-1766 and 1783. They were another branch of the Watsons of Rockingham. The Hon. Thomas Watson (d.1723) was the third son of the 2nd Lord Rockingham who had married Lady Anne Wentworth, the heiress to the Earl of Stafford's estates in Yorkshire. He took the name Watson Wentworth on inheriting his mother's estates shortly after he had purchased the Harrowden estate from Lord Banbury in 1693. Watson Wentworth built Great Harrowden Hall between 1716 and 1719. His son Thomas (d.1750), who had become 6th Lord Rockingham, was made Marquis of Rockingham in 1746.

The 3rd Earl Fitzwilliam was awarded an English earldom in 1746, the original grant being an Irish title. William, the 4th Earl (d.1833) was an important Whig politician who was briefly Viceroy of Ireland. Charles the 5th Earl (d.1857) inherited the Marquis of Rodingham's estates in 1782 and left Milton to his second son the Hon. George Wentworth-Fitzwilliam (d.1874). Milton passed to his son George Charles Wentworth-Fitzwilliam (d.1935) and then to his son William Thomas who succeeded as 10th Earl in 1952. On his death in 1979 the Earldom became extinct.