Viscount Milton was a British nobleman, explorer of British North America, and Liberal Party politician.
Fitzwilliam was the eldest son of William Wentworth-FitzWilliam, 6th Earl FitzWilliam, and his wife Lady Frances Harriet, daughter of George Douglas, 17th Earl of Morton, and was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge [1].

In 1860 Milton visited the Red River Settlement and the trip whetted his appetite for more travel in British North America. According to a lecture he gave to a number of British scientific and literary societies in 1864, he was the initiator of a second and more important journey: “In the spring of 1862 I resolved to investigate for myself the nature of the country between the Red River Settlement and the Rocky Mountains; and to penetrate, if possible, by the shortest route to the gold regions of Cariboo.” He rightly considered himself “fortunate to obtain the assistance” of a friend, Dr. Walter Butler Cheadle, who proved to be the real leader of the expedition [2].

‘The favourable effect upon his health produced by the invigorating climate of the Great Plains, and the charm of the wild life there, induced Lord Milton to return there the following year, in company with Dr. Walter Butler Cheadle [1835–1910], with the view of making a more extensive exploration of the North-West Territory. At that time the gold mines of Cariboo, in British Columbia, were attracting much attention, and the only practicable route to them was the extremely circuitous one by Panama, or the little less indirect and more toilsome journey through United States territory by way of California. Although the rich mining districts of British Columbia lie almost in the direct line across the Continent through British territory, the way was barred by the great chain of the Rocky Mountains; and on each side of the main range lay wide extent of rugged country, covered with dense forest, and in great part unexplored. Lord Milton and Dr. Cheadle determined to make the attempt to discover a way through this difficult and trackless region which separated the plains of the Saskatchewan from the mining districts of British Columbia, and they set out on this expedition in the spring of 1863. The story of this adventurous and toilsome journey, graphically related by Lord Milton and his companion in The North-West Passage by Land, is probably familiar to most of us. Provided with very inadequate resources for such an arduous undertaking, the party endured great hardships and privations before they succeeded in forcing their way by the Yellow Head or Leather Pass, and through the dense forest of the North Thompson River, to the plains of Kamloops. Had Lord Milton enjoyed the full vigour of health, his enterprising spirit would have led him to further geographical research. But the renewed strength, which, in spite of its hardships, he eventually obtained from this journey, did not endure. After the lapse of a few years, he was compelled by increasing illness to resign the seat in Parliament to which he had been elected after his return, and he once more crossed the Atlantic to North America. The last few years of his life he spent chiefly in the highlands of Virginia; returning to England, however, shortly before his death [3].