for royal visits to Manchester (the first occurring in 1851) and Egerton presided at the 1842 meeting of the British Association of Science in Manchester but Egerton had little influence in Manchester; when his name was put forward for presidency of the Manchester Athenaeum, Richard Cobden was brought forward as an alternative candidate, and duly elected. Egerton's politics (Tory and protectionist) were not those of (Reform and Free Trade) Manchester, and his association with the Bridgewater trust also told against him. The Bridgewater canal The canal was highly profitable, and owed much of its profitability to price-fixing agreements with its rivals; this led to resentment in both Liverpool and Manchester of its wealth and influence (and hence that of Egerton). After 1810, when they had agreed to charge identical rates, the canal and the Mersey and Irwell Navigation ('the Old Quay Company') had enjoyed a profitable duopoly of Manchester-Liverpool goods traffic (not because each had exclusive use of their waterway but because each had a monopoly of Manchester warehouses with easy access to their waterway). The Liverpool and Manchester Railway had been promoted to allow greater volumes of traffic between the two towns, and to bring down transport costs. However, faced with strenuous opposition from Egerton's father, the railway's promoters had won him round to the extent that he had subscribed for over a fifth of the company's capital with a corresponding presence on the board. The shares had been inherited, not by Egerton, but by his brother, the 2nd Duke of Sutherland; Loch was also auditor and principal steward for the Duke, as well as personally holding shares in the railway. When the railway opened, the rates charged by two previous carriers settled down just below the maximum (ten shillings a ton)the railway was allowed to charge by its parliamentary act. When the Old Quay Company later significantly reduced its freight charges, they were bought out by Egerton personally (1843) and the previous charges reinstated: the Bridgewater trust then bought the company from him (for over half a million pounds) once they had obtained the requisite powers. After the railway was absorbed into the London and North Western Railway, there was a brief period of fierce competition for goods traffic, with the rate for transport of cotton from Liverpool to Manchester dropping by two-thirds. A more profitable modus vivendi was soon restored, however; in 1858, after the canal had