Item 0043 - Letter, 19 September 1855

Sir Philip de Malpas Grey Egerton was born on November 13, 1806, in Malpas, Cheshire, England.

He was an English paleontologist and Conservative politician. He was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford (B.A., 1828). While at college he showed an interest in geology. On his father's death in 1829, he inherited the baronetcy, becoming 10th Baronet. In 1831, he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society and became a trustee of the British Museum and trustee of the Senate of the University of London in 1834. While travelling in Switzerland with Lord Cole, they were introduced to Prof. L. Agassiz at Neufchâtel. During the course of fifty years, they gradually gathered two of the largest and finest private collections of fossil fish that were donated to the British Museum. Egerton contributed several articles on the structure and affinities of many species of fossil fish to the Geological Magazine and the Decades of the Geological Survey. In 1873, in recognition of his services, he was awarded the Wollaston medal by the Geological Society. He was also a member of Grillion's Club and compiled a history of the club's first fifty years in a book "Grillion's Club: From Its Origin in 1812 To Its Fiftieth Anniversary", (1880). He was elected Member of Parliament for the city of Chester in 1830 but lost the seat in 1831. He was elected for Cheshire South in 1835 and held the seat until 1868. In 1868, he was elected MP for West Cheshire and held this position until his death in 1881.

In 1832, he married Anna Elizabeth Legh (1808–1882). He died on April 5, 1881, in London, England.