Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Warburton, Rowland Eyles Egerton-
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.]