Shirley family of Ettington

The Shirley family of Ettington (Warwickshire) descended from Robert Shirley, 1st Earl Ferrers and his second wife Selina, daughter of the London merchant George Finch (see Shirley, Earls Ferrers). Robert Shirley, the eldest son of this marriage, received the ancestral family estate of Ettington in tail male. This passed on his death without issue in 1738 to his next brother George Shirley (d. 1787). The County Monaghan estate, however, consisting of a moiety of the barony of Farney, inherited from Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex (for whom see also Thynne, Marquesses of Bath), was divided equally between the four sons of the second marriage. These portions were united in the possession of George Shirley following the childless deaths of his younger brothers in 1765 and 1768; some Irish property was sold c.1789-90. The Warwickshire and County Monaghan estates descended together to the heirs of George Shirley. Property in Middlesex, including a mansion at Twickenham, was settled on Robert Shirley (d. 1738) by his father but this seems to have been disposed of by the early 19th century. A quantity of papers of the Shirley family was collected by Evelyn Philip Shirley, an antiquarian member of the Ettington branch, from Staunton Harold and transferred to Ettington about 1830.

Estates in 1883: Warwicks 1,769 acres, Worcs 605 acres, Co Monaghan 26,386 acres, total 28,760 acres worth £23,744 a year.