Fairfax of Steeton.
"The truly ancient family of Fairfax," as Camden styles it, is supposed to be of Saxon origin, and to have been seated at Torcester in Northumberland at the period of the Conquest. In 1205 (sixth of John,) Richard Fairfax, the first of the family proved by evidence, was possessed of the lands of Ascham, not far from the City of York. His grandson William purchased the Manor of Walton in the West Riding, which continued for near six hundred years, till the extinction of the elder male line of the family in the person of Charles Gregory Fairfax, tenth Viscount Fairfax of Ireland, in 1772, the inheritance of his descendants. From a younger son of Richard Fairfax, of Walton, Chief Justice of England in the reign of Henry VI. the present family is descended, as well as Fairfax of Denton, Baron Fairfax of Cameron in Scotland (1627,) who represents an elder line,* and who resides in the United States of America.
Steeton was the gift of the Chief Justice to Sir Guy Fairfax, his third son, the founder of this branch of the family, and here he erected a castle in 1477.
See Lodge's Peerage of Ireland, ed. 1754, vol. ii. p. 397.
Arms.—Argent, three bars gemelles gules, surmounted by a lion rampant sable, crowned or.
Present Representative, Thomas Fairfax, Esq.
* He is descended from the eldest son of Sir William Fairfax of Steeton, who died in 1557.
Norton of Grantley, Baron Grantley 1782.
