MIDDLETON, Sir Hugh, was the sixth son of Richard Middleton, Esq., governor of Denbigh Castle in Denbighshire. The date of Sir Hugh's birth and the events of his early life are not known, until his great undertaking of supplying the city of London with water. He had been, however, a goldsmith in the metropolis, and had enriched himself by the successful working of certain copper mines in Wales. Nothing had been done by the citizens of London beyond securing the legal right during Elizabeth's reign of bringing water from any part of Middlesex or Hertfordshire to the metropolis, when, on 28th March 1606, this "citizen and goldsmith" came forward and proposed to bring a supply of water to London at his own cost. Two years afterwards he commenced his work at the Chadwell and Amwell springs, near Ware in Hertfordshire, and after encountering much annoyance and hard labour, the indefatigable and princely goldsmith saw the water in the cistern at Islington on Michaelmas day 1613. But if Middleton had the pleasure of seeing his stupendous undertaking completed, he had also the mortification to find his fortune well-nigh exhausted. He had been aided in the work by King James I.; and in acknowledgment of the generous services of this worthy citizen, his majesty knighted him, and afterwards created him a baronet. Sir Hugh was one of the principal shareholders in connection with the New River Company, but the profits amounted at first to the merest trifle—being little more than £10 during the first eighteen years; and it is supposed that Middleton at his death left a numerous family not very well provided for.