John Crewe, 2nd Baron Crewe (bap. 1772 – 4 December 1835) was an English soldier and a peer. He formed part of the
first British embassy to China, and rose to the rank of General. Becoming estranged from the majority of his family, he spent much of his life in self-imposed exile on the Continent. He is perhaps best known for a painting of him as a child by
Sir Joshua Reynolds
Sir Joshua Reynolds (16 July 1723 – 23 February 1792) was an English painter, specialising in portraits. John Russell said he was one of the major European painters of the 18th century. He promoted the "Grand Style" in painting which depen ...
.
Early life
Crewe was the son of
John Crewe (1742–1829) of
Crewe Hall
Crewe Hall is a Jacobean mansion located near Crewe Green, east of Crewe, in Cheshire, England. Described by Nikolaus Pevsner as one of the two finest Jacobean houses in Cheshire,Pevsner & Hubbard, p. 22 it is listed at grade I. Built in 16 ...
, a wealthy
Whig politician who was created the first
Baron Crewe in 1806. His mother,
Frances Anne Crewe, the daughter of
Fulke Greville
Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke, ''de jure'' 13th Baron Latimer and 5th Baron Willoughby de Broke KB PC (; 3 October 1554 – 30 September 1628), known before 1621 as Sir Fulke Greville, was an Elizabethan poet, dramatist, and statesman wh ...
, was a political hostess known for her great beauty and wit.
His younger sister, Elizabeth Emma (1780–1850), married Foster Cunliffe-Offley; two other siblings, Richard and Frances, did not survive infancy.
[
As a child in around 1775, he was painted by ]Sir Joshua Reynolds
Sir Joshua Reynolds (16 July 1723 – 23 February 1792) was an English painter, specialising in portraits. John Russell said he was one of the major European painters of the 18th century. He promoted the "Grand Style" in painting which depen ...
in a pose and costume which mimic the well-known portrait of Henry VIII by Hans Holbein the Younger
Hans Holbein the Younger ( , ; german: Hans Holbein der Jüngere; – between 7 October and 29 November 1543) was a Germans, German-Swiss people, Swiss painter and printmaker who worked in a Northern Renaissance style, and is considered o ...
. The portrait is considered among the artist's finest portrayals of children, and has been described as "one of Reynolds' freshest attempts at comedy painting". Horace Walpole commented: "Is not there humour and satire in Sir Joshua's reducing Holbein's swaggering and colossal haughtiness of Henry VIII to the boyish jollity of Master Crewe?"
Frances Burney described him in the early 1790s as "a silent and reserved, but, I think, sensible young man". Local historian Ray Gladden describes him at the time of his entrance into the army as "high spirited", accruing gambling debts that his father had to pay off by selling land. One of his daughters later remembered that he claimed his total debts were never above £80,000, then a huge sum.
Army career
Crewe entered the army in the 1790s. In 1793, when he held the rank of a lieutenant, he was a member of the Macartney Embassy
The Macartney Embassy (), also called the Macartney Mission, was the first British diplomatic mission to China, which took place in 1793. It is named for its leader, George Macartney, Great Britain's first envoy to China. The goals of the missi ...
to China, led by Lord Macartney, who was his mother's cousin. Crewe rose to the rank of Major-General in 1808, Lieutenant-General in 1813 and full General in 1830, before retiring in 1831. He lost the sight in one eye during active service.
Marriage and children
On 5 May 1807, he married Henrietta Maria Anna Walker-Hungerford, daughter of George Walker and Henrietta Maria Keate Walker. She was the heiress to a substantial fortune derived from her father's family's Barbados sugar plantations.[Gladden, Ray. ''Calmic at Crewe Hall'', p. 28 (Medica Packaging; 2005)] She was a first cousin of James Smithson, the founding benefactor of the Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...
(her mother was Smithson's aunt). The couple had four children: three daughters, Henrietta Mary (1808–79), Maria Hungerford (who died in infancy) and Annabella Hungerford (1814–1874), and a son, Hungerford
Hungerford is a historic market town and civil parish in Berkshire, England, west of Newbury, east of Marlborough, northeast of Salisbury and 60 miles (97 km) west of London. The Kennet and Avon Canal passes through the town alongside the ...
(1812–94).
According to Gladden, the marriage was not a happy one. On September 15, 1813, in Byford, Herefordshire an illegitimate son was born to Crewe. Discrete arrangements were made with a childless local couple, John and Ann Griffiths, to claim that this child, named John, (later to become Rev. John Griffiths) was their biological son. This relationship was well known and acknowledged by both family (including his half-sister Annabella Hungerford in particular) and local villages alike. In recognition of this relationship John's first issue male descendants, to this day, have the names Houghton, Monckton and/or Milnes included in their names. Also, Gladden states that Crewe contracted a second bigamous marriage in 1820, which was carried out at the chapel at the family seat of Crewe Hall
Crewe Hall is a Jacobean mansion located near Crewe Green, east of Crewe, in Cheshire, England. Described by Nikolaus Pevsner as one of the two finest Jacobean houses in Cheshire,Pevsner & Hubbard, p. 22 it is listed at grade I. Built in 16 ...
and officiated over by a billiard-maker. This second marriage resulted in an illegitimate daughter.
Henrietta Crewe died in 1820, aged 48. The couple's three surviving children, aged between six and eleven, became wards of court, and lived with Lord Crewe at Crewe Hall. Hungerford Crewe was eccentric as a child and is said to have seen little of his father. A family history written by Robert Crewe-Milnes, 1st Marquess of Crewe
Robert Offley Ashburton Crewe-Milnes, 1st Marquess of Crewe, (12 January 185820 June 1945), known as The Honourable Robert Milnes from 1863 to 1885, The Lord Houghton from 1885 to 1895 and as The Earl of Crewe from 1895 to 1911, was a British L ...
, states that John Crewe regarded his only son with "nothing but contempt."
Wealth from slavery
Following the abolition of slavery in 1833, Crewe was one of the those awarded compensation by Parliament for the loss of his "property" at Four Hills and The Rock, sugar plantation estates on Barbados that he had acquired through his wife.
Life abroad
Crewe lived abroad for many years while he was in the army and after his retirement. In 1817, he was imprisoned in France after being falsely accused of owing 23,945 francs to a hotel-keeper. ''The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'' quotes the French newspaper ''The Moniteur'':
On his father's death in 1829, he became the second Baron Crewe. Gladden states that his father cut him out of his will, so far as was possible. Crewe Hall and the rental income from the Crewe family's large estates in Cheshire
Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county t ...
and Staffordshire were inherited by his sister, Elizabeth Cunliffe-Offley. Small bequests were left to John Crewe's daughters.
Lord Crewe never subsequently lived at Crewe Hall. By this date he was living at the chateau Bois l'-Evèque, near Liège in Belgium. His younger daughter, Annabella, went to live with the Cunliffe-Offleys in Madeley, resulting in a permanent breach between her and her father. She married Richard Monckton Milnes
Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron Houghton, FRS (19 June 1809 – 11 August 1885) was an English poet, patron of literature and a politician who strongly supported social justice.
Background and education
Milnes was born in London, the son of ...
in 1851. His older daughter, Henrietta, moved to Belgium to live with her father, and subsequently converted to Roman Catholicism. She returned to England after her father's death and never married, maintaining an establishment for many years in the grounds of Prior Park, Bath.
Lord Crewe died at Bois l'Evèque in 1835, and is buried at Barthomley
Barthomley is a village and ancient parish, and is now a civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. According to the 2001 and the 2011 census' the parish had a population of 202. , Cheshire, where the family chapel is located. He was succeeded by his son, Hungerford Crewe. Hungerford Crewe inherited Crewe Hall and the Crewe family estates two years later.
Arms
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Crewe, John, 2nd Baron Crewe
1772 births
1835 deaths
British Army generals
Barons in the Peerage of the United Kingdom
British Army personnel of the Napoleonic Wars
Eldest sons of British hereditary barons