402
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. xn. NOV. 21, im.
Leicester, 28 May, 1745, and after having i
this capacity afforded an opportunity for
joke to George Selwyn (Wai pole to Georg
Montagu, 3 December, 1752), he died peaceabl
at Bath on 14 December, 1758. His widow
finding her attempts on the higher branche
of the peerage fruitless, was content tomarr
a commoner. On 3 August, 1765, she espousec
at Chelsea Thomas Pownall, who, having bee
Governor of Massachusetts, was universall
known as "Governor Pownall." She diec
6 February, 1777, aged fifty-one, and wa
buried on the north side of the Lady Chape
in Lincoln Cathedral, where her monumen
remains to this day. Her husband survivec
her twenty-eight years.
There is an excellent memoir of Sir Everarc Fawkener in the 'Dictionary of Nationa Biography ' by Mr. William Prideaux Court ney ; but it contains one inaccuracy, whici seems to be based on a very common mis conception, more than one work of autho rity having given currency to it ; and it i with the view of putting the matter on a correct footing, as well as of acquiring in formation, that I have compiled this note.
Sir Everard and Lady Fawkener had severa children, three at least of whom survivec them a son and two daughters. Of the daughters the younger, Harriet, married or 30 June, 1764, the Hon. Edward Bouverie second son of Jacob, first Viscount Folkestone and M.P. successively for New Sarum and for Southampton. After his death, 3 September 1810, his widow married Lord Robert Spencer, who died without issue in 1831. The elder daughter married a Mr. Crewe, and the identification of this gentleman with the first Lord Crewe constitutes Mr. Courtney's mis- take. Other writers have fallen into the same error, among whom I may cite the editors of ' George Selwyn : his Letters and his Life,' 1899, p. 138 note.
These mistakes are to some extent ex- cusable, as three gentlemen of the name of John Crewe were living at the same time, all of whom married within a few years of each other, and some confusion between them has not unnaturally resulted. Of the three two are well known, while the identity of the third is a matter of doubt. I will take them in order.
I. John Crewe was the eldest son of John Crewe, of Madeley and Crewe, by his wife, Elizabeth Shuttleworth. He was born on 27 September, 1742, and on the death of his father, 18 September, 1752, succeeded to the large estates in Staffordshire and Cheshire, then estimated at 15,000/. per annum. On 4 April, 1766, he married at St. George's,
Hanover Square, Frances Anne, daughter of
Fulke Greville, of Wilbury, co. Wilts, and
his wife, Frances Macartney ('Registers of
St. George's,' Harleian Soc. Pub., i. 153). In
connexion with the date of this marriage
another common error may be pointed out.
The ceremony is stated in the memoir of
the first Lord Crewe in the ' Dictionary of
National Biography,' as well as in many
Peerages, to have taken place in 1776.* Even
in the carefully edited. * Life and Letters of
Lady Sarah Lennox' this error occurs in a
note, i. 145, although the date is clearly
shown to be wrong by the text (see i. 188).
The true date may be proved not only by the
Registers of St. George's, but, as the late ME.
EDWARD SOLLY pointed out in * N. & Q.,'
6 th S. x. 502, by the record of the marriage in
the Royal Magazine for April, 1766, p. 223,
and in the London Magazine for the same
month, p. 214. John Crewe w&s created
a baron on 25 February, 1806. Of his
beautiful wife the toast of the Whigs, and
the Amoret of Charles James Fox's famous
poem it is unnecessary to say anything here.
She died 23 December, 1818, and her husband
survived her for over ten years, dying at the
age of eighty-six on 28 April, 1829.
II. John Crewe, of Bolesworth Castle, Cheshire, was the eldest son of the Rev. Joseph Crewe, D.D., rector of Barthomley and Astbury, Cheshire, and a first cousin of John Crewe I. He was born in 1740, and, according to the (jentlemaris Magazine, mar- ried 3 Nov., 1763, Miss Hyett, of the Birches, Shropshire, with a fortune of 25,000^. This young lady was the daughter and sole heiress of John Hyett, Esq., who, besides his Shrop- shire property, owned the manor of Cobhams, n West Ham, co. Essex, which subsequently Mr. and Mrs. Crewe sold to Mr. Allen, a calico printer (Lysons's 'Environs,' vol. i. )art ii. p. 731). Mr. Crewe's only daughter, Elizabeth Anne (bora 2 Oct., 1764), married 29 June, 1784, at St. George's, Hanover Square George Evelyn Boscawen, third Viscount Falmouth, born 6 May, 1758, died 8 Feb., 1808, and ancestor of the present peer. Lady Fal- nouth died 10 Aug., 1793.
III. John Crewe is mentioned by Walpole n a letter to the Earl of Hertford dated 27 May, 1764. He writes : " Lady Falkener's [sic] aughter is to be married to a young rich Ir. Crewe, a Macarone, and of our Loo." 'he marriage seems to have already taken }Jace, as the Gentleman'* Magazine records it nder 17 May, 1764. But 'the identity of
- This mistake has unfortunately been repeated
i the account of Lady Crewe in the ' Index and pitome of the ' Dictionary.'
