Crewe family, Barons Crewe

Sir Ranulph Crewe (1558-1646), Lord Chief Justice 1625-6, purchased the ancestral Crewe estates in Cheshire from the heirs of Sir Christopher Hatton and built Crewe Hall in 1615-36. Through his marriage in 1598 to a co-heir of John Clippesby he acquired property in Norfolk, later sold by his grandson, John Crewe. On the death of the latter in 1684 the estates passed to his daughter Anne, wife of John Offley of Madeley (Shropshire), whose eldest son succeeded to the Crewe and Madeley estates and assumed the name of Crewe. The latter’s great-grandson, the 2nd Baron Crewe, married in 1807 Henrietta Walker-Hungerford, of Calne (Wiltshire). The 3rd Baron died without issue in 1893, and the family estates passed to his nephew, Robert Milnes, 2nd Baron Houghton, only son of Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron Houghton (d. 1885) by Annabella Crewe. The 2nd Baron Houghton took the name of Crewe-Milnes and was created Earl of Crewe in 1895 and Marquess of Crewe in 1911.

Estates in 1883: Crewe: 10,148 acres in Cheshire; 5,479 acres in Staffordshire; 907 acres in Wiltshire; worth a total of £29,016 a year.