A Mid 19th Century Black Morocco Leather Despatch Box embossed with a Viscount's coronet above the initials G de W (Viscount Grey de Wilton) above the title 'lst Manchester Rifle Volunteers'. With a central inset leather strap handle and a Bramah Patent lock and key stamped Asprey 166 Bond St. similarly embossed above.
Dimensions
38 x 27 x 13 cm
The 1st Manchester Rifles, later the 6th Battalion, Manchester Regiment, was a unit of Britain's Volunteer Force and Territorial Army recruited in and around Manchester. It served as infantry at Gallipoli, fighting with distinction at the Third Battle of Krithia, and in some of the bitterest battles on the Western Front in the First World War. After conversion into an anti-aircraft unit of the Royal Artillery between the wars, it defended Manchester, Scapa Flow and Ceylon during the Second World War and continued in the air defence role until 1955.
Arthur Edward Holland Grey Egerton, 3rd Earl of Wilton (25 November 1833 – 18 January 1885), styled Viscount Grey de Wilton from 1833 to 1882, was a British peer and Conservative Member of Parliament from the Egerton family.
Wilton was the third but eldest surviving son of Thomas Egerton, 2nd Earl of Wilton and his first wife Lady Mary Stanley, daughter of Edward Smith-Stanley, 12th Earl of Derby.
He was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford and was elected to Parliament for Weymouth in 1859, a seat he held until 1865, and also represented Bath between 1873 and 1874.
In 1875, seven years before he succeeded his father in the earldom, he was raised to the peerage as Baron Grey de Radcliffe, in the County Palatine of Lancaster.
Lord Wilton married Lady Elizabeth Charlotte Louisa Craven, daughter of William Craven, 2nd Earl of Craven, in 1858. The marriage was childless. Lord Wilton died in January 1885, aged 51. On his death the barony of Grey de Radcliffe became extinct while he was succeeded in the earldom by his younger brother Seymour John Grey Egerton.
