Gresley baronets

The Baronetcy of Gresley of Drakelow was created in the Baronetage of England on 29 June 1611 for George Gresley of Drakelow Hall, Derbyshire who was later High Sheriff of Derbyshire and Member of Parliament for Newcastle-under-Lyme.[3]

Gresley baronets
Escutcheon of the Gresley baronets of Nether Seale
Creation date1611[1]
Statusextinct
Extinction date1976[2]
Seat(s)Drakelow Hall
MottoMeliore fide quam fortuna, With better fidelity than fortune[1]

The Gresley Baronetcy was the sixth oldest baronetcy in Britain until it became extinct on the death of the 13th and last Baronet in 1976.

Background

The Gresleys were an ancient Norman family, descended from Nigel de Stafford, the son of Robert de Stafford, scion of one of the most powerful families in England.[4] Nigel's son, also named Nigel, took the name Gresley after he acquired Castle Gresley in Derbyshire.[5][6] The Domesday Book recorded Nigel de Stafford holding the Manor of Drakelowe near the conclusion of the 11th century, and his descendants, the Gresleys, continued to hold it for nine hundred years – as long as any family in England is said to have owned the same manor.[7][8] The family established the Priory of Gresley near their castle in Gresley before the year 1200.[9] Drakelowe Hall, latterly the family seat, was a large Elizabethan mansion. A subsidiary branch of the family had a seat at Netherseal Hall, Netherseal.

Drakelowe Hall, circa 1890

The two branches of the family were reunited by the marriage of the sister of the 8th Baronet to Rev. William Gresley, Rector of Netherseal, and the succession of their son William Nigel Gresley as 9th Baronet.[10]

The last of the Gresley family vacated Drakelowe Hall in 1931 after 28 generations had lived there.[11][12] The Hall was demolished three years later, in 1934, when the site was redeveloped as Drakelow Power Station, which itself was later demolished. Netherseal Hall was demolished in 1933.

Gresley of Drakelow (1611)

Extended family
  • Sir Robert Gresley (1866–1936) married Lady Frances Spencer Churchill (1870–1954), eldest daughter of George, Duke of Marlborough, and had three sons.[17] There was only one grandchild Janet Gresley (1934–1996), daughter of Antony Gresley (1903-1954).
  • Sir Nigel Gresley (1876-1941) was a noted railway engineer.
  • Wilmot Maria Gresley, daughter of Sir Nigel Bowyer Gresley, 7th Baronet, married Rev. Thomas Levett of Packington Hall in Staffordshire.[19][20][21]

The Gresleys of Drakelowe (1899) by Falconer Madan is the accepted history of the family. It mentions Charles Francis Gresley who married Clara Phillips, and states that the couple had no issue. Richard Boultbee queried that, stating that they had three boys, the eldest of whom has living male Gresley descendants.

References
  1. Burke, John (1833). A General and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerage and Baronetage of the British Empire. H. Colburn. p. 547.
  2. "Gresley, Sir William (Francis)". Who's Who. A & C Black. Retrieved 16 October 2021. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  3. George Edward Cokayne Complete Baronetage 1900
  4. Magna Britannia, Volume 5, Daniel and Samuel Lysons, 1817, Institute of Historical Research, British History Online
  5. John Charles Cox (1877). Notes on the Churches of Derbyshire: The hundreds of Appletree and Repton and Gresley. 1877. Palmer and Edmunds. p. 367.
  6. The Norman People and Their Existing Descendants in the British Dominions and the United States of America calls the Gresley Baronets "a well-known branch of the house of De Toesni, Barons of Toesni and Conches, Normandy.
  7. Gresley, Magna Britannia, Daniel and Samuel Lysons, 1817, British History Online
  8. The Gresley Charters Preserved at Drakelowe, Descriptive Catalogue of the Charters & Muniments of the Gresley Family, Isaac Herbert Jeayes, 1895
  9. Houses of Austin canons, The priory of Gresley, A History of the County of Derby, Victoria County History, William Page, 1907, British History Online
  10. Debrett's baronetage of England, revised, corrected and continued by G.W. Collen, John Debrett, London, 1840
  11. Drakelowe Hall, British Towns and Villages Network
  12. Collections for a History of Staffordshire, Vol. XIX, The William Salt Archaeological Society, Published by Harrison and Sons, London, 1898
  13. "Gresley, Sir George, 1st Bt. (c.1580-1651), of Drakelow, Derbys., History of Parliament Online". www.historyofparliamentonline.org.
  14. Foster, Joseph (1881). The baronetage and knightage. Nichols and Sons. p. 274.
  15. Sir Nigel Bowyer Gresley, 7th Baronet, died at Bath, where there is a mural monument to him in Bath Abbey.
  16. "Gresley, Sir Roger, 8th bt. (1799-1837), of Drakelow, near Burton-on-Trent, Staffs., History of Parliament Online". www.historyofparliamentonline.org.
  17. "Gresley, Sir Robert". Who's Who. A & C Black. Retrieved 16 October 2021. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  18. "Gresley, Sir Nigel". Who's Who. A & C Black. Retrieved 16 October 2021. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  19. The Baronetage of England, John Debrett, 1840
  20. The Admission Register of the Manchester School, Vol. I, Jeremiah Finch Smith, The Chetham Society, Manchester, 1866
  21. Thomas Levett and Wilmot Maria Gresley Levett are buried at St. Giles Church, Whittington, Staffordshire, where there are memorials to them in the chancel.

Bibliography
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