after this Warburton had two narrow escapes—once from the explosion of his pistol, another time from a snake. On 11 Dec. they struck the Oakover river in Western Australia, and on 30 Dec. they were relieved by settlers from Raeburn, which they reached on 26 Jan. 1874. They were enthusiastically received at Perth and Albany. On their return to Adelaide they were entertained at a public banquet. The legislative assembly voted him 1,000l., and the Royal Geographical Society awarded him their gold medal for 1874.
In November 1875 Warburton came to England for a brief holiday, but the colder climate did not agree with him, and he quickly returned. In the same year he was created C.M.G., and there was published his ‘Journey across the Western Interior of Australia … with Introduction and Additions by C. M. Eden … Edited by H. W. Bates’ (London, 8vo).
In 1877 Warburton retired from the post of colonel commandant of volunteers, and took charge of the imperial pensions establishment, living in comparative retirement at Adelaide, where he died on 16 Dec. 1889.
He married, in October 1838, Alicia, daughter of Henry Mant of Bath. One of his sons was his second in command in his journey of exploration.
[Warburton's Journey across the Western Interior of Australia, London, 1875, especially pp. 133–4; Heaton's Australian Dict. of Dates; Mennell's Dict. of Australasian Biography; Burke's Landed Gentry; information from India Office.]
WARBURTON, ROWLAND EYLES EGERTON- (1804–1891), poet, born at Moston, near Chester, on 14 Sept. 1804, was son of the Rev. Rowland Egerton Warburton, who assumed the name Warburton on his marriage with Emma, daughter of James Croxton, and granddaughter and sole heiress of Sir Peter Warburton, bart., of Warburton and Arley, Cheshire. Peter Egerton Warburton [q. v.] was his younger brother. Rowland Warburton was educated at Eton and matriculated from Corpus Christi College, Oxford, on 14 Feb. 1823. After making the grand tour, he settled at Arley and devoted himself to the care of his estates, rebuilding Arley Hall and seldom visiting London. He was high sheriff of Cheshire in 1833. A strong tory and a high churchman, he took little part in politics, but Gladstone's action in disestablishing the Irish church went near to severing an intimate friendship which began when both were young men.
An ardent foxhunter, he generally rode thoroughbred horses bred by himself, and amused himself and his friends by writing hunting songs for the Old Tarporley Club meetings. These verses were of unusual spirit and elegance; they were first collected and published in 1846 under the title of ‘Hunting Songs and Miscellaneous Verses,’ running subsequently through several editions, the eighth edition having appeared in 1887. Among these poems are many with which every hunting man is familiar, such as the one beginning ‘Stags in the forest lie, hares in the valley-o.’ Besides this volume Egerton-Warburton published ‘Three Hunting Songs’ (1855), ‘Poems, Epigrams, and Sonnets’ (1877), ‘Songs and Verses on Sporting Subjects’ (1879), as well as some minor works. For the last seventeen years of his life he was totally blind from glaucoma. He died at Arley Hall on 6 Dec. 1891. He married, on 7 May 1831, Mary, eldest daughter of Sir Richard Brooke, bart., of Norton Priory, Cheshire, and he was succeeded in the estates by his son Piers.
[Ormerod's Hist. of Cheshire; Burke's Landed Gentry; private information.]
WARBURTON, WILLIAM (1698–1779), bishop of Gloucester, born on 24 Dec. 1698, was second and only surviving son of George Warburton, town clerk of Newark, Nottinghamshire, by Elizabeth, daughter of William Holman. The Warburtons descended from the old Cheshire family, and William's paternal grandfather (also a William), before settling at Newark, had taken part in Booth's rising at Chester in 1659. Warburton's grandmother lived to a great age, and her anecdotes of the civil wars interested him so much that, as he told Hurd long afterwards, he read nearly every pamphlet published from 1640 to 1660 (Warburton, Works, i. 73). His father died in 1706. He was sent by his mother to a school at Newark kept by a Mr. Twells, and afterwards to the grammar school at Oakham, Rutland. His first master there is said to have declared, on the appearance of the ‘Divine Legation,’ that he had always considered young Warburton as ‘the dullest of all dull scholars’ (Gent. Mag. 1780, p. 474). Hurd, who made some inquiries from Warburton's relations, could only discover that as a boy he had resembled other boys. In 1714 a cousin, William Warburton, became master of Newark grammar school, and Warburton is said to have been then placed under him. If so, it was for a very short time, as on 23 April 1714 Warburton was articled for five years to John Kirke, an attorney, of East Markham, Nottinghamshire. He served his time with Kirke, and,
