Present Representative, Sir John Villiers Shelley, 7th Baronet.
West of Buckhurst, Earl de la Warr 1761; Baron 1427.
The Wests are remarkable, not so much for the antiquity of the family as for the early period at which they attained the honour of the peerage. Sir Thomas West is the first recorded ancestor; he died in the seventeenth of Edward II., having married the heiress of Cantilupe, and thus became possessed of lands in Devonshire, and at Snitterfield in Warwickshire. His grandson, Thomas, married the heiress of De la Warr, and thus became connected with Sussex. But the principal property of the Wests in this county was granted to Thomas West, afterwards Lord la Warr, in the first year of Henry VII. Few families indeed had broader lands; among which may be mentioned, Offington, in the parish of Broadwater, derived from the heiress of Peverel at the end of the fourteenth century; and Halnaker, in the parish of Boxgrove, both in Sussex; and Wherwell, in Hampshire; all now alienated. Buckhurst came to the present Lord by his marriage with the coheiress of Sackville.
Younger Branch. West of Ruthyn Castle, Denbighshire, descended from the younger son of John, second Earl De la Warr.
The Wests of Alscot, in the county of Gloucester, claim to be descended from Leonard, the younger son of Sir Thomas West, Lord De la Warr, K.G., who died in the year 1525, although there is nothing but "family tradition," as is evident by the memorial to the Earl Marshal of Mr. James West, of Alscot, dated December 12, 1768, to justify this assumption; a distinct coat, viz. Argent, a fess dancette pean, was granted to Mr. West on this occasion.
See Brydges's Collins, vol. v. p. i.; Blore's Rutlandshire, p. 100; Cartwright's Rape of Bramber, p. 38; and Dallaway's Rape of Chichester, pp. 129, 133.
Arms.—Argent, a fess dancette sable. The badge of the De-la-Warrs was a crampet or shape of a sword; assumed by Roger la-Warr, Lord la-Warr, for having assisted Sir John Pelham in making John King of France prisoner at the Battle of Poictiers. See Sussex Archaeological Collections, vol. iii. p. 211.
Present Representative, George John Sackville West, 5th Earl De la Warr.
Gage of Firle; Baron Gage 1790; Viscount Gage in Ireland 1720; Baronet 1622.