This family is stated by Thomas, in his additions to Dugdale's Warwickshire, to be a branch of the Stauntons of Staunton, in the county of Nottingham, an ancient house which is traced to the Conquest, and was lately represented by Sir George Staunton, Baronet of Ireland 1785, extinct 1859. The first of the line seated in Warwickshire was Thomas Staunton, in the 39th of Henry VI., 1461. The parent house, existing in the male line, until the year 1688, at Staunton, in Nottinghamshire, held their lands by tenure of Castle-Guard, by keeping and defending a tower in the Castle of Belvoir, to this day called Staunton Tower. There is an ancient custom also that the chief of the house of Staunton should present the key of this tower to any of the Royal Family who may honour Belvoir with their presence.
Younger Branch. Staunton of Wolverton, in this county, settled there in the eighteenth of Elizabeth; extinct in the last century.
See Dugdale's Warwickshire, vol. ii. p. 665; Thoroton's Nottinghamshire, p. 157; and for the poetical pedigree of this house, Ib. p. 159; the monuments at p. 164; see also "Memoirs of the Life and Family of the late Sir G. L. Staunton, Bart." pr. pr. 8vo. 1833.
Arms.—Argent, two chevrons within a border engrailed sable. Founded on the coat of Albany Lord of Belvoir, who bore, Or, two chevrons and a border gules. The elder line of Staunton sometimes omitted the border; see the tombs in the church of Staunton.
Present Representative, John Staunton, Esq.
Ferrers of Baddesley-Clinton.
The sole remains of what was perhaps during the middle ages the most powerful Norman family in England. Illustrious both for the antiquity of race, the former political consequence, and the splendour of connection of the various branches, of which the forfeited Earls of Derby, and De Ferrariis, or Ferrers, were the chiefs. Descended from Henry de Feriers at the time of the Conquest, who held in chief 210 lordships in fourteen counties of England, besides the castle and borough of Tutbury, in Staffordshire, the principal seat of the earldom.
The Baddesley-Clinton line was founded by Sir Edward Ferrers, (son of Sir Henry, who was second son of Thomas Ferrers, of Tamworth Castle, in this county,) by his marriage with Constantia, daughter and heiress of Nicholas Brome, of Baddesley. He died in 1535.
After the forfeiture of the Earldom of Derby, in the reign of Henry III., and the vast possessions attached to it, the Castle of Chartley, in Staffordshire, inherited from Agnes, daughter and coheir of Ranulph, Earl of Chester, became the seat of the principal male line, extinct on the death of William Lord Ferrers of Chartley in the 28th of Henry VI. The representation of the family thereupon devolved on the Ferrers's of Tamworth, sprung from the house of Groby, who were founded by William, younger brother of the last Earl of Derby: and on the decease of John Ferrers, of Tamworth, Esq. in 1680, the present family of Baddesley-Clinton succeeded as chief of this illustrious house.