BARONETAGE
Last updated 20/11/2018 (20 Jun 2025)
Date	Type	Order	Name	Born	Died	Age
Names of baronets shown in blue have not yet been placed on the Official Roll of the Baronetage.
Dates in italics in the "Born" column indicate that the baronet was baptised on that date; dates in italics in the "Died" column indicate that the baronet was buried on that date.
SETON of Abercorn, Linlithgow
3 Jun 1663	NS	1	Walter Seton		20 Feb 1692
20 Feb 1692		2	Walter Seton		3 Jan 1708
3 Jan 1708		3	Henry Seton		1751
1751		4	Henry Seton		29 Jun 1788
29 Jun 1788		5	Alexander Seton	4 May 1772	4 Feb 1810	37
4 Feb 1810		6	Henry John Seton For information on the death of this baronet, see the note at the foot of this page	4 Apr 1796	21 Jul 1868	72
21 Jul 1868		7	Charles Hay Seton	14 Nov 1797	11 Jun 1869	71
11 Jun 1869		8	Bruce Maxwell Seton	31 Jan 1836	12 Mar 1915	79
12 Mar 1915		9	Bruce Gordon Seton	13 Oct 1868	3 Jul 1932	63
3 Jul 1932		10	Alexander Hay Seton For further information on this baronet, see the note at the foot of this page	14 Aug 1904	7 Feb 1963	58
7 Feb 1963		11	Bruce Lovat Seton	29 May 1909	28 Sep 1969	60
28 Sep 1969		12	Christopher Bruce Seton	3 Oct 1909	17 Jan 1988	78
17 Jan 1988		13	Iain Bruce Seton	27 Aug 1942	13 Jun 2025	82
13 Jun 2025		14	Lawrence Bruce Seton	1 Jul 1968
SETON of Garleton, Haddington
9 Dec 1664	NS	1	John Seton	29 Sep 1639	Feb 1686	46
Feb 1686 to     c 1720		2	George Seton On his death the heir was under attainder and the baronetcy was thus forfeited		c 1720
SETON of Windygowl
24 Jan 1671 to     Nov 1671	NS	1	Robert Seton Extinct on his death	10 Nov 1641	Nov 1671	30
SETON of Pitmedden, Aberdeen
15 Jan 1683	NS	1	Alexander Seton		29 May 1719
29 May 1719		2	William Seton MP for Scotland 1707‑1708	6 Mar 1673	1744	71
1744		3	Alexander Seton	19 Jan 1703	21 Jul 1750	47
21 Jul 1750		4	William Seton		11 Oct 1774
11 Oct 1774		5	Archibald Seton		26 May 1775
26 May 1775		6	William Seton		16 Feb 1818
16 Feb 1818		7	William Coote Seton	19 Dec 1808	30 Dec 1880	72
30 Dec 1880		8	James Lumsden Seton For information on the death of this baronet, see the note at the foot of this page	1 Sep 1835	26 Sep 1884	49
26 Sep 1884		9	William Samuel Seton	22 May 1837	5 Mar 1914	76
5 Mar 1914		10	John Hastings Seton	20 Sep 1888	21 Jun 1956	67
21 Jun 1956		11	Robert James Seton	20 Apr 1926	29 Oct 1993	67
29 Oct 1993		12	James Christall Seton	21 Jan 1913	4 Apr 1998	85
4 Apr 1998		13	Charles Wallace Seton	25 Aug 1948
SETON-STEUART of Allanton, Lanark
22 May 1815	UK	1	Henry Steuart For details of the special remainder included in the creation of this baronetcy, see the note at the foot of this page	20 Oct 1759	1836	76
1836		2	Reginald Macdonald		15 Apr 1838
15 Apr 1838		3	Henry James Seton-Steuart	5 Nov 1812	6 Dec 1884	72
6 Dec 1884		4	Alan Henry Seton-Steuart	23 Apr 1856	3 Apr 1913	56
3 Apr 1913 to     19 Feb 1930		5	Douglas Archibald Seton-Steuart Extinct on his death	20 Aug 1857	19 Feb 1930	72
SEYLIARD of Delaware, Kent
18 Jun 1661	E	1	John Sylyard	c 1613	19 Dec 1667
Dec 1667		2	Thomas Seylyiard	c 1648	4 May 1692
May 1692		3	Thomas Seylyiard	c 1673	11 Jan 1701
Jan 1701 to     Sep 1701		4	John Seyliard Extinct on his death	25 Jul 1700	23 Sep 1701	1
SEYMOUR of Berry Pomeroy, Devon
29 Jun 1611	E	1	Edward Seymour MP for Devon 1590, 1601 and 1604‑1611	c 1563	11 Apr 1613
11 Apr 1613		2	Edward Seymour MP for Penryn 1601, Newport 1604‑1611, Lyme Regis 1614, Devon 1621‑1622, Callington 1624‑1625 and Totnes 1625	c 1580	5 Oct 1659
5 Oct 1659		3	Edward Seymour MP for Devon 1640, 1640‑1644 and 1660, and Totnes 1661‑1687	10 Sep 1610	7 Dec 1688	78
7 Dec 1688		4	Edward Seymour MP for Hindon 1661‑1679, Devon 1679, Totnes 1679‑1681 and 1695‑1698, and Exeter 1685‑1695 and 1698‑1708; Treasurer of the Navy 1673‑1681; PC 1679	1633	17 Feb 1708	74
17 Feb 1708		5	Edward Seymour MP for West Looe 1690‑1695, Totnes 1708‑1710 and Great Bedwyn 1710‑1715	18 Dec 1663	29 Dec 1740	77
29 Dec 1740		6	Edward Seymour He subsequently succeeded to the Dukedom of Somerset in 1750 with which title the baronetcy remains merged	17 Jan 1695	15 Dec 1757	62
SEYMOUR of Langley, Bucks
4 Jul 1681 to     Apr 1714	E	1	Henry Seymour MP for East Looe 1699‑1713 Extinct on his death	20 Oct 1674	Apr 1714	39
SEYMOUR of High Mount, Limerick
31 May 1809	UK		See "Culme-Seymour"
SEYMOUR of the Army
28 Oct 1869	UK	1	Francis Seymour	2 Aug 1813	10 Jul 1890	76
10 Jul 1890 to     2 May 1949		2	Albert Victor Francis Seymour Extinct on his death	1 Dec 1887	2 May 1949	61
SHAEN of Kilmore, Roscommon
7 Feb 1663	I	1	James Shaen MP [I] for Baltinglass 1692‑1693 and 1695	by 1629	13 Dec 1695
13 Dec 1695 to     24 Jun 1725		2	Arthur Shaen MP [I] for Lismore 1692‑1693, 1695‑1699 and 1703‑1725 Extinct on his death	after 1650	24 Jun 1725
SHAKERLEY of Somerford Hall, Cheshire
30 Jul 1838	UK	1	Charles Peter Shakerley	27 Dec 1792	14 Sep 1857	64
14 Sep 1857		2	Charles Watkin Shakerley	27 Mar 1833	20 Oct 1898	65
20 Oct 1898		3	Walter Geoffrey Shakerley	26 Nov 1859	11 Jan 1943	83
11 Jan 1943		4	George Herbert Shakerley	27 Sep 1863	7 Aug 1945	81
7 Aug 1945		5	Cyril Holland Shakerley	28 Feb 1897	21 Aug 1970	73
21 Aug 1970		6	Geoffrey Adam Shakerley	9 Dec 1932	3 Dec 2012	79
3 Dec 2012		7	Nicholas Simon Adam Shakerley	20 Dec 1963
SHAKESPEARE of Lakenham, Norfolk
11 Jul 1942	UK	1	Geoffrey Hithersay Shakespeare MP for Wellingborough 1922‑1923 and Norwich 1929‑1945; PC 1945	23 Sep 1893	8 Sep 1980	86
8 Sep 1980		2	William Geoffrey Shakespeare	12 Oct 1927	12 Mar 1996	68
12 Mar 1996		3	Thomas William Shakespeare	11 May 1966
SHARP of Scotscraig, Fife
21 Apr 1683	NS		See "Bethune"
SHARP of Heckmondwike, Yorks
28 Jun 1920	UK	1	Milton Sheridan Sharp	30 Jan 1856	22 May 1924	68
22 May 1924		2	Milton Sharp	22 Apr 1880	17 Dec 1941	61
17 Dec 1941		3	Milton Reginald Sharp	21 Nov 1909	4 May 1996	86
4 May 1996		4	Sheridan Christopher Robin Sharp	25 Apr 1936	4 Dec 2014	78
4 Dec 2014		5	Fabian Alexander Sebastian Sharp	5 Nov 1973
SHARP of Warden Court, Maidstone, Kent
23 Jun 1922	UK	1	Edward Sharp	13 May 1854	23 Aug 1931	77
23 Aug 1931		2	Herbert Edward Sharp	25 Apr 1879	16 Jun 1936	57
16 Jun 1936		3	Edward Herbert Sharp	3 Dec 1927	4 Nov 1985	57
4 Nov 1985		4	Adrian Sharp	17 Sep 1951
SHAW of Eltham, Kent
15 Apr 1665	E		See "Best-Shaw"
SHAW of Greenock, Renfrew
28 Jun 1687	NS	1	John Shaw		16 Apr 1693
16 Apr 1693		2	John Shaw		16 Apr 1702
16 Apr 1702 to     5 Apr 1752		3	John Shaw MP for Renfrewshire 1708‑1710 and 1727‑1734, and Clackmannanshire 1722‑1727 Extinct on his death	c 1679	5 Apr 1752
SHAW of Kilmarnock, Ayr
21 Sep 1809 to     22 Oct 1843	UK	1	James Shaw MP for London 1806‑1818 He obtained a new patent in 1813 - see below Extinct on his death	26 Aug 1764	22 Oct 1843	79
SHAW of Kilmarnock, Ayr
14 Jan 1813	UK	1	Sir James Shaw, 1st baronet For details of the special remainder included in the creation of this baronetcy, see the note at the foot of this page	26 Aug 1764	22 Oct 1843	79
22 Oct 1843 to     19 Nov 1868		2	John Shaw Extinct on his death	c 1788	19 Nov 1868
SHAW of Bushy Park, co. Dublin
17 Aug 1821	UK	1	Robert Shaw MP [I] for Bannow 1799‑1800; MP for Dublin 1804‑1826	29 Jan 1774	10 Mar 1849	75
10 Mar 1849		2	Robert Shaw	28 Sep 1796	19 Feb 1869	72
19 Feb 1869		3	Frederick Shaw MP for Dublin 1830‑1831 and 1831‑1832, and Dublin University 1832‑1848; PC [I] 1835	11 Dec 1799	30 Jun 1876	76
30 Jun 1876		4	Robert Shaw	3 Aug 1821	16 May 1895	73
16 May 1895		5	Frederick William Shaw	15 Mar 1858	15 Jul 1927	69
15 Jul 1927		6	Robert de Vere Shaw	24 Feb 1890	26 Mar 1969	79
26 Mar 1969		7	Robert Shaw	31 Jan 1925	18 Dec 2002	77
18 Dec 2002		8	Charles de Vere Shaw	1 Mar 1957
SHAW of Wolverhampton, Warwicks
30 Nov 1908 to     17 Apr 1942	UK	1	Theodore Frederick Charles Edward Shaw MP for Stafford 1892‑1911 Extinct on his death	11 Sep 1859	17 Apr 1942	82
SHAW-STEWART of Blackhall and Greenock, Renfrew
27 Mar 1667	NS	1	Archibald Stewart	c 1635	c 1722
c 1722		2	Archibald Stewart		Apr 1724
Apr 1724		3	Michael Stewart	c 1712	20 Oct 1796
20 Oct 1796		4	John Shaw-Stewart MP for Renfrewshire 1780‑1783 and 1786‑1796	c 1740	7 Aug 1812
7 Aug 1812		5	Michael Shaw-Stewart Lord Lieutenant Renfrew 1822‑1825	10 Feb 1766	25 Aug 1825	59
25 Aug 1825		6	Michael Shaw-Stewart MP for Lanarkshire 1827‑1830 and Renfrewshire 1830‑1837	4 Oct 1788	19 Dec 1836	48
19 Dec 1836		7	Michael Robert Shaw-Stewart MP for Renfrewshire 1855‑1865; Lord Lieutenant Renfrew 1869‑1903	26 Nov 1826	10 Dec 1903	77
10 Dec 1903		8	Michael Hugh Shaw-Stewart MP for Renfrewshire East 1886‑1906; Lord Lieutenant Renfrew 1922‑1942	11 Jul 1854	29 Jun 1942	87
29 Jun 1942		9	Walter Guy Shaw-Stewart Lord Lieutenant Renfrew 1950‑1967	10 Aug 1892	26 Apr 1976	83
26 Apr 1976		10	Euan Guy Shaw-Stewart	11 Oct 1928	30 Jan 1980	51
30 Jan 1980		11	Houston Mark Shaw-Stewart	24 Apr 1931	21 Feb 2004	72
21 Feb 2004		12	Ludovic Houston Shaw-Stewart	12 Nov 1986
SHEAFFE of Boston, Massachusetts
16 Jan 1813 to     17 Jul 1851	UK	1	Roger Hale Sheaffe Extinct on his death	15 Jul 1763	17 Jul 1851	88
SHEE of Dunmore, Galway
22 Jan 1794	I	1	George Shee MP [I] for Knocktopher 1798‑1800	Jan 1754	3 Feb 1825	71
3 Feb 1825 to     25 Jan 1870		2	George Shee Extinct on his death	14 Jun 1785	25 Jan 1870	84
SHEFFIELD of Normanby, Lincs
1 Mar 1755	GB	1	Charles Sheffield	c 1706	5 Sep 1774
5 Sep 1774		2	John Sheffield	c 1743	4 Feb 1815
4 Feb 1815		3	Robert Sheffield	c 1758	26 Feb 1815
26 Feb 1815		4	Robert Sheffield	25 Feb 1786	7 Nov 1862	76
7 Nov 1862		5	Robert Sheffield	8 Dec 1823	23 Oct 1886	62
23 Oct 1886		6	Berkeley Digby George Sheffield MP for Brigg 1907‑1910 and 1922‑1929	19 Jan 1876	26 Nov 1946	70
26 Nov 1946		7	Robert Arthur Sheffield	18 Oct 1905	2 Jun 1977	71
2 Jun 1977		8	Reginald Adrian Berkeley Sheffield	9 May 1946
SHELLEY of Michelgrove, Sussex
22 May 1611	E	1	John Shelley		c 1644
c 1644		2	Charles Shelley		1681
1681		3	John Shelley	after 1662	25 Apr 1703
25 Apr 1703		4	John Shelley MP for Arundel 1727‑1741 and Lewes 1743‑1747	6 Mar 1692	6 Sep 1771	79
6 Sep 1771		5	John Shelley MP for East Retford 1751‑1768 and Newark 1768‑1774; PC 1766	c 1730	11 Sep 1783
11 Sep 1783		6	John Shelley MP for Helston 1806 and Lewes 1816‑1831	3 Mar 1772	28 Mar 1852	80
28 Mar 1852		7	John Villiers Shelley MP for Gatton 1830‑1831, Grimsby 1831 and Westminster 1852‑1865	18 Mar 1808	28 Jan 1867	58
28 Jan 1867		8	Frederic Shelley	5 May 1809	19 Mar 1869	59
19 Mar 1869		9	John Shelley	31 Aug 1848	29 Mar 1931	82
29 Mar 1931		10	John Frederick Shelley	14 Oct 1884	8 Mar 1976	91
8 Mar 1976		11	John Richard Shelley	18 Jan 1943
SHELLEY of Castle Goring, Sussex
3 Mar 1806	UK	1	Bysshe Shelley	12 Jun 1731	6 Jan 1815	83
6 Jan 1815		2	Timothy Shelley	Sep 1753	24 Apr 1844	90
24 Apr 1844		3	Percy Florence Shelley	12 Nov 1819	5 Dec 1889	70
5 Dec 1889		4	Edward Shelley	10 Dec 1827	17 Sep 1890	62
17 Sep 1890		5	Charles Shelley	14 May 1838	20 Jul 1902	64
20 Jul 1902		6	John Courtown Edward Shelley (Shelley-Rolls from 1917)	5 Aug 1871	18 Feb 1951	79
18 Feb 1951		7	Percy Bysshe Shelley	24 Jun 1872	24 Sep 1953	81
24 Sep 1953		8	Sidney Patrick Shelley	18 Jan 1880	25 Jul 1965	85
25 Jul 1965		9	William Philip Sidney VC He had previously been created Viscount de L'Isle in 1956 with which title the baronetcy remains merged	23 May 1909	5 Apr 1991	81
SHELLEY-SIDNEY of Penshurst Place, Kent
12 Dec 1818	UK	1	John Shelley-Sidney	18 Dec 1771	14 Mar 1849	77
14 Mar 1849		2	Philip Charles Sidney He had previously been created Baron de L'Isle & Dudley in 1835 with which title the baronetcy remains merged	11 Mar 1800	4 Mar 1851	50
SHEPPARD of Thornton Hall, Bucks
29 Sep 1809	UK	1	Thomas Sheppard		21 Nov 1821
21 Nov 1821 to     5 Apr 1848		2	Thomas Sheppard-Cotton Extinct on his death	3 Mar 1785	5 Apr 1848	63
SHEPPERSON of Upwood, Hunts
20 Jun 1945 to     22 Aug 1949	UK	1	Sir Ernest Whittome Shepperson MP for Leominster 1922‑1945 Extinct on his death	4 Oct 1874	22 Aug 1949	74
SHERARD of Lopthorp, Lincs
25 May 1674	E	1	John Sherard	c 1662	1 Jan 1725
1 Jan 1725		2	Richard Sherard	c 1666	14 Jun 1730
14 Jun 1730		3	Brownlow Sherard	7 Feb 1668	30 Jan 1736	67
30 Jan 1736 to     25 Nov 1748		4	Brownlow Sherard Extinct on his death	c 1702	25 Nov 1748
SHERBURNE of Stonyhurst, Lancs
4 Feb 1686 to     14 Dec 1717	E	1	Nicholas Sherburne Extinct on his death		14 Dec 1717
SHERSTON-BAKER of Dunstable House, Surrey
14 May 1796	GB	1	Robert Baker	20 Apr 1754	4 Feb 1826	71
4 Feb 1826		2	Henry Loraine Baker	3 Jan 1787	2 Nov 1859	72
2 Nov 1859		3	Henry Williams Baker	27 May 1821	12 Feb 1877	55
12 Feb 1877		4	George Edward Dundas Sherston Baker	19 May 1846	15 Mar 1923	76
15 Mar 1923		5	Dodington George Richard Sherston-Baker	22 Jul 1877	18 Nov 1944	67
18 Nov 1944		6	Humphrey Dodington Benedict Sherston-Baker	13 Oct 1907	15 Feb 1990	82
15 Feb 1990		7	Robert George Humphrey Sherston-Baker	3 Apr 1951
SHIERS of Slyfield, Surrey
16 Oct 1684 to     18 Jul 1685	E	1	George Shiers Extinct on his death	c 1660	18 Jul 1685
SHIFFNER of Coombe Place, Sussex
16 Dec 1818	UK	1	George Shiffner	17 Nov 1762	Feb 1842	79
Feb 1842		2	Henry Shiffner	4 Nov 1788	18 Mar 1859	70
18 Mar 1859		3	George Shiffner	17 May 1791	14 Dec 1863	72
14 Dec 1863		4	George Croxton Shiffner	21 Aug 1819	23 Jan 1906	86
23 Jan 1906		5	John Shiffner For information on the death of this baronet, see the note at the foot of this page	8 Aug 1857	5 Apr 1914	56
5 Apr 1914		6	John Bridger Shiffner	5 Aug 1899	24 Sep 1918	19
24 Sep 1918		7	Henry Burrowes Shiffner	29 Jul 1902	22 Nov 1941	39
22 Nov 1941		8	Henry David Shiffner For information on this baronet, see the note at the foot of this page	2 Feb 1930	22 Aug 2018	88
22 Aug 2018		9	Michael George Edward Shiffner	5 Mar 1963
SHIRLEY of Staunton Harold, Leics
22 May 1611	E	1	George Shirley	23 Apr 1559	27 Apr 1622	63
27 Apr 1622		2	Henry Shirley	c 1588	8 Feb 1633
8 Feb 1633		3	Charles Shirley	9 Sep 1623	7 Jun 1646	22
7 Jun 1646		4	Robert Shirley	1629	6 Nov 1656	27
6 Nov 1656		5	Seymour Shirley	23 Jan 1647	16 Jul 1667	20
Jan 1668		6	Robert Shirley	Jan 1668	11 Mar 1669	1
Mar 1669		7	Robert Shirley He was subsequently created Earl Ferrers in 1711 with which title the baronetcy remains merged	20 Oct 1650	25 Dec 1717	67
SHIRLEY of Preston, Sussex
6 Mar 1666	E	1	Anthony Shirley MP for Arundel 1654‑1655, Sussex 1656‑1658 and Steyning 1659	5 Jul 1624	22 Jun 1683	58
Jun 1683		2	Richard Shirley	c 1655	30 Mar 1692
Mar 1692 to     1705		3	Richard Shirley Extinct on his death	c 1680	1705
SHIRLEY of Oat Hall, Sussex
27 Jun 1786	GB	1	Thomas Shirley Governor of the Bahamas 1767, Dominica 1774 and the Leeward Islands 1781	30 Dec 1727	18 Feb 1800	72
18 Feb 1800 to     26 Feb 1815		2	William Warden Shirley Extinct on his death	4 Aug 1772	26 Feb 1815	42
SHORE of Heathcote, Derby
27 Oct 1792	GB	1	John Shore He was subsequently created Baron Teignmouth in 1798 with which title the baronetcy then merged until its extinction in 1981	5 Oct 1751	14 Feb 1834	82
SHUCKBURGH of Shuckburgh, Warwicks
25 Jun 1660	E	1	John Shuckburgh	1635	1661	26
1661		2	Charles Shuckburgh MP for Warwickshire 1698‑1705	Nov 1659	2 Sep 1705	45
2 Sep 1705		3	John Shuckburgh	18 Aug 1683	19 Jun 1724	40
19 Jun 1724		4	Stewkley Shuckburgh	9 Mar 1711	10 Mar 1759	48
10 Mar 1759		5	Charles Shuckburgh	17 Mar 1722	10 Aug 1773	51
10 Aug 1773		6	George Augustus William Shuckburgh (Shuckburgh‑Evelyn from Jul 1793) MP for Warwickshire 1780‑1804	23 Aug 1751	11 Aug 1804	52
11 Aug 1804		7	Stewkley Shuckburgh	c 1760	21 Jul 1809
21 Jul 1809		8	Francis Shuckburgh	12 Mar 1789	29 Oct 1876	87
29 Oct 1876		9	George Thomas Francis Shuckburgh	23 Jul 1829	12 Jan 1884	54
12 Jan 1884		10	Stewkley Frederick Draycott Shuckburgh	20 Jun 1880	17 Nov 1917	37
17 Nov 1917		11	Gerald Francis Stewkley Shuckburgh	28 Feb 1882	3 Aug 1939	57
3 Aug 1939		12	Charles Gerald Stewkley Shuckburgh	28 Feb 1911	4 May 1988	77
4 May 1988		13	Rupert Charles Gerald Shuckburgh	12 Feb 1949	24 Jan 2012	62
24 Jan 2012		14	James Rupert Charles Shuckburgh	4 Jan 1978
SHUTTLEWORTH of Gawthorpe Hall, Lancs
22 Dec 1849	UK		See "Kay-Shuttleworth"
SIBBALD of Rankelour, Fife
24 Jul 1630	NS	1	James Sibbald		21 May 1650
21 May 1650 to     c 1680		2	David Sibbald On his death the baronetcy became dormant		c 1680
SIDNEY of Penshurst, Kent
12 Dec 1818	UK		See "Shelley-Sidney"
SILVESTER of Yardley
20 May 1815 to     30 Mar 1822	UK	1	John Silvester He was granted a fresh patent in 1822 - see below Extinct on his death	Sep 1745	30 Mar 1822	76
SILVESTER of Yardley
11 Feb 1822	UK	1	Sir John Silvester, 1st baronet	Sep 1745	30 Mar 1822	76
30 Mar 1822 to     Aug 1828		2	Philip Carteret Silvester Extinct on his death		Aug 1828
SIMEON of Chilworth, Oxon
18 Oct 1677	E	1	James Simeon		15 Jan 1709
15 Jan 1709 to     22 Dec 1768		2	Edward Simeon Extinct on his death	c 1682	22 Dec 1768
SIMEON of Grazeley, Berks
22 May 1815	UK	1	John Simeon		4 Feb 1824
4 Feb 1824		2	Richard Godin Simeon MP for Isle of Wight 1832‑1837	21 May 1784	4 Jan 1854	69
4 Jan 1854		3	John Simeon MP for Isle of Wight 1847‑1851	5 Feb 1815	21 May 1870	55
21 May 1870		4	John Stephen Barrington Simeon MP for Southampton 1895‑1906	31 Aug 1850	26 Apr 1909	58
26 Apr 1909		5	Edmund Charles Simeon	11 Dec 1855	18 Jun 1915	59
18 Jun 1915		6	John Walter Barrington Simeon	Jan 1886	24 Jun 1957	71
24 Jun 1957		7	John Edmund Barrington Simeon	1 Mar 1911	6 Dec 1999	88
6 Dec 1999		8	Richard Edmund Barrington Simeon	2 Mar 1943	11 Oct 2013	70
11 Oct 2013		9	Stephen George Barrington Simeon	29 Oct 1970
SIMPSON of Strathavon, Linlithgow
3 Feb 1866	UK	1	James Young Simpson	7 Jun 1811	5 May 1870	58
5 May 1870		2	Walter Grindlay Simpson	1 Sep 1843	29 May 1898	54
29 May 1898 to     16 Mar 1924		3	James Walter Mackay Simpson Extinct on his death	6 Sep 1882	16 Mar 1924	41
SIMPSON of Bradley Hall, Durham
1 Feb 1935	UK	1	Frank Robert Simpson	12 Apr 1864	29 Apr 1949	85
29 Apr 1949		2	Basil Robert James Simpson	13 Feb 1898	19 Aug 1968	70
19 Aug 1968 to     21 Dec 1981		3	John Cyril Finucane Simpson Extinct on his death	10 Feb 1899	21 Dec 1981	82
SINCLAIR of Dunbeath, Caithness
3 Jan 1631 to     c 1652	NS	1	John Sinclair Extinct on his death		c 1652
SINCLAIR of Canisbay, Caithness
2 Jun 1631	NS	1	James Sinclair		1662
1662		2	William Sinclair		c 1677
c 1677		3	James Sinclair		c 1710
c 1710		4	James Sinclair		c 1730
c 1730		5	James Sinclair		4 Oct 1760
4 Oct 1760		6	John Sinclair		Apr 1774
Apr 1774		7	James Sinclair He subsequently succeeded to the Earldom of Caithness in 1789 with which title the baronetcy remains merged	31 Oct 1766	16 Jul 1823	56
SINCLAIR of Longformacus, Berwick
10 Dec 1664	NS	1	Robert Sinclair		1678
1678		2	John Sinclair		after 1696
after 1696		3	Robert Sinclair		28 Sep 1727
28 Sep 1727		4	John Sinclair		5 Dec 1764
5 Dec 1764		5	Harry Sinclair		25 Jun 1768
25 Jun 1768		6	John Sinclair		7 Jan 1798
7 Jan 1798 to     c 1843		7	John Sinclair On his death the baronetcy became either extinct or dormant		c 1843
SINCLAIR of Kinnaird, Fife
c 1675	NS	1	James Sinclair		c 1702
c 1702		2	George Sinclair		1726
1726		3	John Sinclair		25 Dec 1767
25 Dec 1767		4	John Sinclair Nothing further is known of him or his successors (if any)	1763
SINCLAIR of Dunbeath, Caithness
12 Oct 1704	NS	1	James Sinclair		28 Sep 1742
28 Sep 1742		2	William Sinclair		2 Aug 1767
2 Aug 1767		3	Alexander Sinclair		1786
1786		4	Benjamin Sinclair		26 Oct 1796
26 Oct 1796		5	John Sinclair		1 Oct 1842
1 Oct 1842		6	John Sinclair	16 Sep 1794	21 Apr 1873	78
21 Apr 1873		7	John Rose George Sinclair	10 Aug 1864	3 Nov 1926	62
3 Nov 1926		8	Ronald Norman John Charles Udny Sinclair	30 Jun 1899	19 Oct 1952	53
19 Oct 1952		9	John Rollo Norman Blair Sinclair	4 Nov 1928	10 Mar 1990	62
10 Mar 1990		10	Patrick Robert Richard Sinclair	21 May 1936	5 Mar 2011	74
5 Mar 2011		11	William Robert Francis Sinclair	27 Mar 1979
SINCLAIR of Ulbster, Caithness
14 Feb 1786	GB	1	John Sinclair For information on the special remainder included in this creation, see the note at the foot of this page MP for Caithness 1780‑1784, 1790‑1796, 1802‑1806 and 1807‑1811, Lostwithiel 1784‑1790 and Petersfield 1797‑1802	10 May 1754	21 Dec 1835	81
21 Dec 1835		2	George Sinclair MP for Caithness 1811‑1812, 1818‑1820 and 1831‑1841	23 Aug 1790	9 Oct 1868	78
9 Oct 1868		3	John George Tollemache Sinclair MP for Caithness 1869‑1885 For further information on this baronet, see the note at the foot of this page	8 Nov 1824	29 Sep 1912	87
29 Sep 1912		4	Archibald Henry Macdonald Sinclair He was subsequently created Viscount Thurso in 1952 with which title the baronetcy then merged	22 Oct 1890	15 Jun 1970	79
SINCLAIR-LOCKHART of Stevenston, Haddington
18 Jun 1636	NS	1	John Sinclair		1649
1649		2	John Sinclair	26 Jul 1642	1652	9
1652		3	Robert Sinclair	15 Oct 1643	Jul 1713	69
Jul 1713		4	John Sinclair		1726
1726		5	Robert Sinclair		25 Oct 1754
25 Oct 1754		6	John Sinclair		13 Feb 1789
13 Feb 1789		7	Robert Sinclair		4 Aug 1795
4 Aug 1795		8	John Gordon Sinclair	31 Jul 1790	12 Nov 1863	73
12 Nov 1863		9	Robert Charles Sinclair	25 Aug 1820	5 May 1899	78
5 May 1899		10	Graeme Alexander Sinclair-Lockhart	23 Jan 1820	20 Mar 1904	84
20 Mar 1904		11	Robert Duncan Sinclair-Lockhart	12 Nov 1856	8 Nov 1919	62
8 Nov 1919		12	Graeme Duncan Power Sinclair-Lockhart	29 Jan 1897	15 Feb 1959	62
15 Feb 1959		13	John Beresford Sinclair-Lockhart	4 Nov 1904	11 Mar 1970	65
11 Mar 1970		14	Muir Edward Sinclair-Lockhart	23 Jul 1906	10 Feb 1985	78
10 Feb 1985		15	Simon John Edward Francis Sinclair-Lockhart	22 Jul 1941
SITWELL of Renishaw, Derby
3 Oct 1808	UK	1	Sitwell Sitwell MP for West Looe 1796‑1802		14 Jul 1811
14 Jul 1811		2	George Sitwell	20 Apr 1797	12 Mar 1853	55
12 Mar 1853		3	Sitwell Reresby Sitwell	6 Oct 1820	12 Apr 1862	41
12 Apr 1862		4	George Reresby Sitwell MP for Scarborough 1885‑1886 and 1892‑1895 For further information on this baronet, see the note at the foot of this page	27 Jan 1860	8 Jul 1948	88
8 Jul 1948		5	(Francis) Osbert Sacheverell Sitwell CH 1958	6 Dec 1892	4 May 1969	76
4 May 1969		6	Sacheverell Sitwell CH 1984	15 Nov 1897	1 Oct 1988	90
1 Oct 1988		7	Sacheverell Reresby Sitwell	15 Apr 1927	31 Mar 2009	81
31 Mar 2009		8	George Reresby Sacheverell Sitwell	22 Apr 1967
SKEFFINGTON of Fisherwick, Staffs
8 May 1627	E	1	William Skeffington		16 Sep 1635
Sep 1635		2	John Skeffington MP for Newcastle under Lyme 1626	c 1590	19 Nov 1651
19 Nov 1651		3	William Skeffington		7 Apr 1652
Apr 1652		4	John Skeffington He subsequently succeeded to the Viscountcy of Massereene in 1665 with which title the baronetcy then merged until its extinction in 1816		21 Jun 1695
SKEFFINGTON of Skeffington, Leics
27 Jun 1786	GB	1	William Charles Farrell-Skeffington	24 Jun 1742	26 Jan 1815	72
26 Jan 1815 to     10 Nov 1850		2	Lumley St. George Skeffington Extinct on his death	23 Mar 1771	10 Nov 1850	79
SKENE of Curriehill
22 Feb 1628	NS	1	James Skene		10 Oct 1633
10 Oct 1633 to     c 1680		2	John Skene On his death the baronetcy became either extinct or dormant		c 1680
SKINNER of Pont Street, Chelsea
9 Feb 1912	UK	1	Thomas Skinner	23 Nov 1840	11 May 1926	85
11 May 1926		2	Thomas Hewitt Skinner	12 Jun 1875	4 Oct 1968	93
4 Oct 1968		3	Thomas Gordon Skinner	29 Dec 1899	22 Nov 1972	72
22 Nov 1972		4	Thomas Keith Hewitt Skinner	6 Dec 1927	18 Oct 2021	93
18 Oct 2021		5	Thomas James Hewitt Skinner	11 Sep 1962
SKIPWITH of Prestwould, Leics
20 Dec 1622	E	1	Henry Skipwith		c 1658
c 1658		2	Henry Skipwith	c 1616	c 1663
c 1663		3	Grey Skipwith		c 1680
c 1680		4	William Skipwith	c 1670	c 1730
c 1730		5	Grey Skipwith	c 1700	c 1750
c 1750		6	William Skipwith	1703	26 Feb 1764	60
26 Feb 1764		7	Peyton Skipwith		9 Oct 1805
9 Oct 1805		8	Grey Skipwith MP for Warwickshire 1831‑1832 and Warwickshire South 1832‑1835	17 Sep 1771	13 May 1852	80
13 May 1852		9	Thomas George Skipwith	9 Feb 1803	30 Nov 1863	60
30 Nov 1863		10	Peyton Estoteville Skipwith	12 Feb 1857	12 May 1891	34
12 May 1891		11	Gray Humberston d'Estoteville Skipwith	1 Dec 1884	3 Feb 1950	65
3 Feb 1950		12	Patrick Alexander d'Estoteville Skipwith	1 Sep 1938	6 Oct 2016	78
6 Oct 2016		13	Alexander Sebastian Grey d'Estoteville Skipwith	9 Apr 1969
SKIPWITH of Newbold Hall, Warwicks
25 Oct 1670	E	1	Fulwar Skipwith		18 Nov 1677
18 Nov 1677		2	Fulwar Skipwith MP for Coventry 1713‑1715	24 Jun 1676	14 May 1728	51
14 May 1728		3	Francis Skipwith	c 1705	6 Dec 1778
6 Dec 1778 to     28 Jan 1790		4	Thomas George Skipwith MP for Warwickshire 1769‑1780 and Steyning 1780‑1784 Extinct on his death	c 1735	28 Jan 1790
SKIPWITH of Metheringham, Lincs
27 Jul 1678	E	1	Thomas Skipwith MP for Grantham 1659 and 1660	c 1620	2 Jun 1694
2 Jun 1694		2	Thomas Skipwith MP for Malmesbury 1696‑1698	c 1652	15 Jun 1710
15 Jun 1710 to     4 Jun 1756		3	George Brydges Skipwith Extinct on his death	7 Nov 1686	4 Jun 1756	69
SLADE of Maunsell House, Somerset
30 Sep 1831	UK	1	John Slade	1762	13 Aug 1859	97
13 Aug 1859		2	Frederick William Slade	21 Jan 1801	8 Aug 1863	62
8 Aug 1863		3	Alfred Frederic Adolphus Slade For information about the Slade baronetcy case of 1867, see the note at the foot of this page	28 May 1834	19 Jul 1890	56
19 Jul 1890		4	Cuthbert Slade	10 Apr 1863	9 Feb 1908	44
9 Feb 1908		5	Alfred Fothringham Slade	17 Jan 1898	28 Oct 1960	62
28 Oct 1960		6	Michael Nial Slade	30 Jul 1900	15 Apr 1962	61
15 Apr 1962		7	Benjamin Julian Alfred Slade For further information regarding this baronet, see the note at the foot of this page	22 May 1946
SLANNING of Maristow, Devon
19 Jan 1663	E	1	Nicholas Slanning MP for Plympton Erle 1667‑1679 and Penryn 1679‑1689	Jun 1643	c Apr 1691
c Apr 1691 to     21 Nov 1700		2	Andrew Slanning Extinct on his death For information on the death of this baronet, see the note at the foot of this page	c 1674	21 Nov 1700
SLEIGHT of Weelsby Hall, Lincs
29 Jun 1920	UK	1	George Frederick Sleight	26 Mar 1853	19 Mar 1921	67
19 Mar 1921		2	Ernest Sleight	14 Oct 1873	16 Jul 1946	72
16 Jul 1946		3	John Frederick Sleight	13 Apr 1909	12 Feb 1990	80
12 Feb 1990		4	Richard Sleight	27 May 1946
SLINGSBY of Scriven, Yorks
23 Oct 1628 to     1630	E	1	Anthony Slingsby Extinct on his death		1630
SLINGSBY of Scriven, Yorks
2 Mar 1638	NS	1	Henry Slingsby MP for Knaresborough 1625, 1640 and 1640‑1642 For further information on the death of this baronet, see the note at the foot of this page	14 Jan 1602	8 Jun 1658	56
8 Jun 1658		2	Thomas Slingsby MP for Yorkshire 1670‑1679, Knaresborough 1679‑1685 and Scarborough 1685‑1687	15 Jun 1636	1 Mar 1688	51
Mar 1688		3	Henry Slingsby MP for Knaresborough 1685‑1689	c 1660	15 Sep 1691
Sep 1691		4	Thomas Slingsby	c 1668	15 Nov 1726
Nov 1726		5	Henry Slingsby MP for Knaresborough 1714‑1715 and 1722‑1763	c 1693	18 Jan 1763
18 Jan 1763		6	Thomas Slingsby	c 1695	18 Jan 1765
18 Jan 1765		7	Savile Slingsby	c 1698	Nov 1780
Nov 1780		8	Thomas Turner Slingsby	c 1741	14 Apr 1806
14 Apr 1806		9	Thomas Slingsby	10 Jan 1775	26 Feb 1835	60
26 Feb 1835 to     4 Feb 1869		10	Charles Slingsby On his death the baronetcy became dormant For further information on the death of this baronet, see the note at the foot of this page	22 Aug 1824	4 Feb 1869	44
SLINGSBY of Bifrons, Kent
19 Oct 1657	E	1	Arthur Slingsby	c 1623	12 Feb 1666
Feb 1666 to     after 1677		2	Charles Slingsby On his death the baronetcy is presumed to have become either extinct or dormant		after 1677
SLINGSBY of Newcells, Herts
16 Mar 1661 to     26 Oct 1661	E	1	Robert Slingsby Extinct on his death	c 1611	26 Oct 1661
SLOANE of Chelsea, Middlesex
3 Apr 1716 to     11 Jan 1753	GB	1	Hans Sloane Extinct on his death	10 Apr 1660	11 Jan 1753	92

	Sir Henry John Seton, 6th baronet [NS 1663]
	Sir Henry died in 1868 after being run down by a hansom cab. The following report appeared in the Bury and Norwich Post, and Suffolk Herald on 28 July 1868:-
	On Wednesday evening [22 July 1868] Mr. St.Clare Bedford, Coroner for Westminster, held an inquest at St.James's Vestry-hall, Piccadilly, on the body of Sir Henry John Seaton [sic], aged 71, who was run over in St.James's-street on the previous Saturday. Mr. R. B. Mackay, an East India merchant, said that on Saturday evening, a little before seven o'clock, he was in a hansom cab driving up St.James's-street, Piccadilly. When opposite the end of King-street he observed deceased endeavouring to cross the street, and shouted to him. He looked at the cab, and seemed to think that he could get across in time, but became confused, and stepped back, and then forward right in front of the horse. The shaft of the cab struck him on the right shoulder, throwing him down in the roadway. The wheel went on him and over his side, but just as it was going over his head the driver pulled up so vigorously as to avert it. Witness jumped out of the cab, and rendered what assistance he could to deceased, whom he found quite insensible, and he was carried in a chair to his rooms in King-street. The driver of the cab was quite sober, and could not have avoided the occurrence. The deceased stepped into the roadway when the cab was so close to him that it was impossible to pull up in time to prevent the accident.
	Mr. William Friker said he witnessed the whole occurrence, and that the cab was not going faster than six miles an hour.
	Mr. W. Miller, surgeon, said that he was called to deceased immediately after the accident. He was insensible, but he recovered for a minute and said, "Let me go to the Club." He again became insensible, and never uttered any more words. Two of his ribs were fractured, and he had received a blow on the forehead which had produced concussion of the brain. Everything possible was done for his relief, but he remained insensible throughout Sunday and Monday, and on Tuesday morning he died.
	Samuel Standen, the driver of the cab, said he did see deceased until he was close to the horse's head.
	The Coroner having summed up the evidence, the Jury returned a verdict of "Accidental death".
	Sir Alexander Hay Seton, 10th baronet [NS 1663]
	The following report appeared in The Irish Times of 29 March 1937:-
	Sir Alexander Seton, of Edinburgh, believes he and his family are "haunted" by a sacred bone, supposed to carry with it the curse of a Pharaoh.
	So serious and persistent have been a series of accidents suffered by his family since the bone has been in their possession that Lady Seton is to make a special trip to Egypt shortly to replace the bone in the tomb from which it was acquired last year.
	Speaking from Edinburgh yesterday, Sir Alexander told the Press Association that since the bone was brought to his home, Prestonfield House, Duddingston, by Lady Seton, their life had been made miserable by accidents that could not be coincidences.
	He and Lady Seton visited Egypt last year. As a curio Lady Seton brought back a glass case, containing a piece of bone believed to be part of the skeleton of a Pharaoh of one of the lesser dynasties, and the curio was given a place of honour in the lounge.
	From the moment it was placed there an unprecedented series of happenings occurred in the household. Sudden illnesses attacked the family and staff, two fires broke out, and visitors still complain of a mysterious robed figure which wanders through the house at night. Glassware put away in cabinets was found smashed to atoms in other parts of the room in the morning, and on Saturday, when no-one was near the lounge, the glass case fell only two feet from the table and yet was pounded to splinters while the bone was undamaged.
	Maids will not stay in the house more than one night, and each complained of meeting the spectral robed figure.
	"This is the last straw," said Sir Alexander yesterday. "My friends have laughed at the whole affair - until they stayed here a night - and though I have tried to have an open mind this is far more than coincidence. It is perfectly astounding how we have been dogged by this shadow of ill-luck ever since that wretched bone was brought into the house."
	Sir Alexander, a soldier, business man and diplomat, has received about 80 offers for the bone, but he is determined that no one else shall suffer the experiences of Lady Seton and himself. "That bone is going to be replaced in the tomb we took it from as quickly as possible," he said, "and Lady Seton is making the trip herself to ensure that it gets there. This ghastly business has got to stop, and we are taking no chances."
	Sir Alexander once gave the bone to a surgeon, and that very night the surgeon's maid broke a leg running away in terror, as she said, from a robed figure. He brought it back next day.
	Sir James Lumsden Seton, 8th baronet [NS 1683]
	Sir James committed suicide in September 1884. The following report on the subsequent inquest appeared in the Leeds Mercury on 1 October 1884:-
	An inquest was held yesterday afternoon at Kensington on the body of Sir James Lumsden Seton, Bart., who had committed suicide by cutting his throat. Lady Elizabeth Seton, wife of the deceased, said Sir James, who was 49 years of age, had lately been in depressed spirits. He went to his bath-room on Sunday morning about eight o'clock, and an hour later, the door being forced, he was found dead. Other evidence showed that the deceased had an extensive gash in his throat. Lieut.-Colonel William Samuel Seton, of Penally, near Denbigh, stated that some years ago the deceased had a fall from his horse, and in consequence had suffered mentally at varying intervals. A verdict of "Suicide whilst in a state of unsound mind" was returned.
	The special remainder to the baronetcy of Seton-Steuart created in 1815
	From the London Gazette of 27 December 1814 (issue 16969, page 2535):-
	His Royal Highness the Prince Regent has been pleased, in the name and on behalf of His Majesty, to grant the Dignity of a Baronet of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland to Henry Steuart, of Allanton, in the County of Lanark, Esq; with remainder to his son in law, Ranald or Reginald Macdonald, of Stalfa, and his heirs male.
	The special remainder to the baronetcy of Shaw created in 1813
	From the London Gazette (issue 16676, page 2420):-
	His Royal Highness, the Prince Regent, has been pleased, in the name and on the behalf of His Majesty, to grant the dignity of a Baronet of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland >unto Sir James Shaw, of Kilmarnock in the County of Ayr, and Polmadie, in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright, and to the heirs male of his body lawfully begotten, with remainder to John Shaw, of Whitehall-place, in the City of Westminster, and of Kilmarnock, in the County of Ayr, Esq., nephew of the said Sir James Shaw, and to the heirs male of his body lawfully begotten.
	Sir John Shiffner, 5th baronet
	Sir John accidentally shot himself while cleaning his rifle. The following report of the subsequent inquest is taken from The Times of 7 April 1914:-
	The death of Sir John Shiffner on Sunday formed the subject of an inquiry at Bevern Bridge House, Chailey, near Lewes, Sir John's residence, yesterday afternoon. The inquiry was held by Dr. Dow, Deputy-Coroner for East Sussex, and Mr. W.W. Grantham, son of the late Mr. Justice Grantham, was foreman of the jury.
	Lord Calthorpe gave evidence of identification, stating that Sir John Shiffner was a retired captain of the Royal Artillery and was 56 years of age. Lady Shiffner and Miss Betty Shiffner had been staying with the witness, and the latter was returning to Chailey on the evening of the occurrence and Lady Shiffner was to follow at the end of the week.
	Mr. Douglas Crocket, living at Barcombe, said he was invited to lunch by Sir John Shiffner on Sunday and arrived about 10 minutes past 1. A servant let him in and went to the study. She came running back saying, "Do come here. Whatever has happened?" He went into the study and found Sir John dead with a bullet wound in his face. He locked the room up and hailing the first motor-car which passed the house, drove into Lewes for medical assistance.
	Police-constable Lyon, of Chailey, said he found Sir John sitting in an arm chair in his study. He had the barrel of a rifle between his legs, and another rifle was lying on the floor. There was a cleaning rag in the right hand and other articles for cleaning rifles were on the floor. In the barrel between the legs was a spent bullet case. It appeared that this had become fixed in the barrel and that an attempt had been made to dislodge it with a screw driver, and then by means of the extractor. This caused the cartridge to explode.
	Dr. Andrews, of Lewes, said Sir John Shiffner was evidently smoking a pipe at the time, for there was one on the floor at his side. All the evidence, added the witness, suggested that Sir John was cleaning the rifle and was not aware that the cartridge was a live one.
	The jury returned a verdict of "Accidental death".
	Sir Henry David Shiffner, 8th baronet [UK 1818]
	Sir Henry, a member of Sir Oswald Mosley's Union Movement, was prosecuted but eventually acquitted on charges that he, along with others, had set fire to the offices of the Anti-Apartheid movement, a natural enemy of Mosley's followers.
	The story of Sir Henry's court appearances was told in a number of separate instalments in the London Daily Telegraph, commencing on 29 March 1961:-
	Witnesses at Clerkenwell yesterday said that after they saw men go into a house in Gower Street, Euston, where the headquarters of the Anti-Apartheid movement are located, they saw flames coming from the basement.
	Sir Henry David Shiffner, 35 [sic], the eighth baronet of Old School House, Offham, Lewes: Peter Dawson, 35, sales representative, Quaker Street, Spitalfields, and Francis John Elliott, 16, electrical apprentice, Freshwater Road, Tooting, were charged on remand with maliciously setting fire to the house. In addition, there was a further charge yesterday of conspiring together, and with others, to break into the house with intent to commit a felony. The Anti-Apartheid movement occupies the basement of the house.
	The basement was set on fire on March 4 and furniture and papers damaged. Mr. Ian Holden, of Scotland Yard's forensic laboratory, said the damage was "typical of that resulting from a highly inflammable liquid being poured on articles and ignited."
	He produced a black oblong tin which he said had contained paraffin. He added: "Something more than paraffin would be needed to start a fire like this."
	Mr. Theodore Theobalds, a Jamaican solicitor whose address was withheld, said he had let "four or five young men" into the house. They had said they had come to collect posters and he showed them the steps to the basement. At the time he and his wife had a flat in the house.
	Two of the men were downstairs for about half a minute and then left by the front door. A few seconds later three other men came up and went out. A van had moved off shortly before that.
	He added: "After they had gone I notice smoke coming from the basement." When he went down he saw: "A mass of flames and a lot of smoke." He could not recognise any of the men.
	Det. Supt. William Brereton said he had had a telephone call from Shiffner on March 20, whom he later told he was believed to have been involved in a case of arson. Shiffner had replied: "I would not like to be involved in such a stupid escapade as setting fire to a place."
	Shiffner, when asked if he were in Gower Street, had said: "This is very difficult. I have been wondering where my duty lies. You see, I did find myself in Gower Street that afternoon, but not by choice. When I realised someone had set fire to the place it was my duty to inform the police."
	Supt. Brereton said that Shiffner added: "But I really only know the hierarchy of the movement, so it would not have been much use. I did not know the others, apart from Dawson, and he did not go into the house."
	When told he would be charged with arson he said: "That's rather hard after telling you the truth." When charged, he said: "I set fire to nothing."
	The three were further remanded until April 6. Elliott's bail of £40 and Shiffner's of £200 were continued, and Dawson, previously remanded in custody, was allowed bail on his own bail of £500 and two sureties of £250.
	The Daily Telegraph of 7 April 1961:-
	A trip by van through London to the Bloomsbury headquarters of the Anti-Apartheid movement, where fire later broke out, was described in extracts from a statement read at Clerkenwell yesterday. The statement was made by Sir Henry David Shiffner. In it he said he thought he was being driven in the van to the Dorchester, where the South African Prime Minister, Dr. Verwoerd, was staying.
	Shiffner, 31, the eighth baronet, a company director, of Old School House, Offham, Lewes, appeared on remand with three other men on charges of arson and conspiring to break into a house in Gower Street, Bloomsbury, on March 4, with intent to commit a felony. The basement of the building is occupied by the Anti-Apartheid movement.
	In the statement, read in court by his counsel, Mr. William Howard, Shiffner said that when he found he had not been taken to the Dorchester, he said: "Where the hell are we?" Someone said: "This is the opposition headquarters. Let's go in and see what their plans are, pretending we are provincial demonstrators arriving late."
	"I still maintained that we were in the wrong place and acting against strict instructions that we confine our activities to the Dorchester," the statement said. Shiffner said he remained in the van. There was a shout of "Fire", and everyone jumped into the van. It was driven off at "great speed".
	All four pleaded not guilty and reserved their defence. They were committed for trial at the Old Bailey and all allowed bail.
	The Daily Telegraph of 10 May 1961:-
	Sir Henry Shiffner, 31, the eighth baronet and a member of Sir Oswald Mosley's Union movement, was acquitted at the Old Bailey yesterday of maliciously setting fire to the London headquarters of the Anti-Apartheid movement.
	Outside the court Sir Henry said: "Whether or not I remain a member of the Union movement depends on talks I must have with the leader. I have planned a meeting with him very soon."
	Sir Henry, a former Cambridge University jazz band player, was discharged on the second day of his trial after a successful submission by his counsel, Mr. Victor Durand QC that there was no case for him to answer.
	The crown had alleged that Sir Henry and three other members of the Union movement had arranged to take part in a demonstration on March 4 to welcome Dr. Verwoerd, the South African Premier, to London.
	Later that afternoon, according to the prosecution, the four men went in a van to the headquarters of the Anti-Apartheid movement in Gower Street, Bloomsbury, and set light to its basement offices.
	In a statement to the police Sir Henry had said that he thought the van was going to the Dorchester Hotel. At Gower Street, he just sat in the van and only later realised something more serious had happened.
	After Mr. Durand's successful submission Sir Henry was discharged by Mr. Justice Widgery.
	Sir Henry, of Old School House, Offham, near Arundel, Sussex, who inherited £70,000 from his father, a soldier, who was killed at Tobruk, said afterwards: "I first went to Africa 18 months ago and came back with certain views. I felt the withdrawal of British rule in Africa was wrong. Sir Oswald Mosley's Union movement seemed to me the only one which was prepared to stand up for the white man in Africa. I joined it six months ago and paid the normal subscription. I am disillusioned by the movement's methods, although I agree with some of their policies, especially about the control of coloured immigrants. Sir Oswald is a personal and social friend of mine and that is another reason why I joined his movement. I think I'm the only British baronet in it."
	The special remainder to the baronetcy of Sinclair created in 1786
	From the London Gazette of 31 January 1786 (issue 12722, page 45):-
	The King has been pleased to grant the Dignity of a Baronet of the Kingdom of Great Britain to John Sinclair, of Ulbster in the County of Caithness, Esq; and the Heirs Male of his Body lawfully begotten; with Remainders severally to the first and every other Son and Sons successively of Hannah Sinclair, his eldest Daughter, and of Janet Sinclair, another of his Daughters, and their respective Heirs Male.
	Sir John George Tollemache Sinclair, 3rd baronet [GB 1786]
	After the death of Sir John Sinclair, the following article appeared in the Washington Post on 5 October 1912:-
	Sir Archibald Sinclair, 22 years of age, a lieutenant in the Second life guards, and who is half American, has just succeeded to the title and the immense estates of his nonagenarian grandfather, the late Sir John Tollemache Sinclair. [Sir Archibald later became the 1st Viscount Thurso.]
	The landed property is very great, extending over an area of 100 square miles in Scotland, comprising some of the finest shooting in the northern kingdom, and the wonderfully picturesque castle of Thurso, which looks over the stormy tides of the Pentland Firth, and is so close to the sea that one can literally fish from the spray-flecked windows.
	Just east of the castle, which is exceedingly spacious, is Harold's Tower, containing the tomb of Earl Harold, who was the possessor at one time of half or Orkney, of Shetland, and of Caithness, and who fell in battle against his namesake, Earl Harold the Wicked, in 1190.
	Sir Archibald's mother was Mabel, the beautiful daughter of Mahlon Sands, of New York, and through her he is connected by ties of kinsmanship with a number of New York families, including the Rutherfurds and the Vanderbilts. Sir Archibald will be known henceforth north of the Tweed as the Laird of Ulbster, and has now become chieftain of one of the branches of that great clan of Sinclair of which the seventeenth Earl of Caithness is the head.
	His grandfather, the late Sir John, was a very eccentric character. He rarely, if ever, dined at a restaurant in vogue, never used to go to a theater or to the opera or even to a music hall, rarely dined out, and was never seen at a ball or party. In spite of his great wealth, he had neither carriages, horse, nor automobiles; walked by preference, and when riding was imperative, made use of the democratic omnibus.
	He would live on herrings and hominy, cooked in his lodgings just off St. James street by himself over a spirit lamp, and then on the following day would fuss over the merits or demerits of the world-famed chef of the Travelers, the most exclusive club in London, of which this wonderful old laird, with his odd-looking wig and his beard, his erect and spare, tall figure, and his extraordinary flow of conversation was one of the oldest members.
	In spite of his numerous castles, country seats, and houses in England, Scotland, and on the Continent, he lived entirely, during the last 30 years of his life, in his lodgings off St. James street, the walls of which were hung with the not particularly attractive Sinclair tartan. Its hues, however, were more or less concealed by the most heterogeneous collection of pictures, some of them priceless gems, others the most worthless daubs. In one word, his rooms, like his castles and country seats, were filled with a mixture of art treasures and art rubbish.
	Sir John may be said to have commenced his public career rather early, since he was page of honor to Queen Adelaide in the reign of William IV, receiving, on his resignation of that post, at the age of 17, the customary commission in the Scots Guards. He married away back in the early fifties one of the beautiful Anglo-French Standishes of Duxbury Park, and this naturally brought him into close contact with the court of the Tuileries, and with the great world in Paris during the palmy days of the empire.
	Indeed, Sir John was at one time a familiar a figure in Paris as in London, and it is no exaggeration to assert that he met and was personally acquainted more or less intimately with nearly every notable personage of the Victorian era, from Nicholas I of Russia and the great Duke of Wellington to the present czar and Emperor William, and comprising Prince Bismarck, with whom he stayed at Friedrichsruhe: Count Cavour, Mazzini, Garibaldi, Empress Eugenie, both prior and subsequent to her marriage: Marshal Prim, Emperor Maximilian of Mexico, Thiers etc.
	His "Reminiscences" which he printed for private circulation, and of which he sent me a copy some years ago, contain many things that are trivial, almost to the point of childishness, and here and there something of real importance. But such as they are, they all help to increase the understanding of the personages with whom they deal.
	To record Sir John's eccentricities would fill a volume. Some years ago he endeavored to relieve the monotony of the poorhouses all over England and Scotland by presenting them with gramophones, the records consisting, however, not of popular tunes, but of speeches which he delivered and of recitations which he had given, either of his own works or of his favorite authors.
	Among the latter, first and foremost, was Byron, among the most extraordinary memorials that have ever been designed to perpetuate the name of this or any other bard is that which Sir John conceived and put into execution. Instead of taking the form of a statue, it assumed the altogether utilitarian shape of an office building, occupying the site of the old offices of the London comic weekly Punch, on the south side of Fleet street, near St. Bride's Church.
	Every stone of the hall pavement of this great office building, which will bring in a large income to his grandson and heir, the now baronet, young Sir Archibald, in the way of rental, is inscribed, "Byron, the Pilgrim of Eternity", and the dates of his birth and death. Each tile is adorned with the words "Crede Byron", while on every block of marble lining the walls are verses from his poems, particularly stanzas from "Childe Harold" and "Don Juan".
	And as if Byron's verses were not sufficient, other inscriptions on the walls record the opinions expressed concerning him by such men as Schiller, Goethe, Victor Hugo, Lamartine, Tennyson, Chateaubriand, Sir Walter Scott and Matthew Arnold. Yet another inscription on the wall states that the British Museum library catalogue devotes 28 pages to Byron and only 10 to Tennyson. On still another, Sir John Sinclair records the fact that one edition for the blind has been published of Byron's works, and none of Tennyson's. Over the entrance is a beautiful medallion portrait of Byron in white marble, with Shelley's splendid epitaph, "The Pilgrim of Eternity", and I need scarcely say that the office building bears the name of Byron House.
	One would be apt to imagine that the overwhelming quantity of Byronic quotations, adorning as they do every vacant place, every stone and tile, and all the walls, floors and ceilings, would be apt to get on the nerves of the occupants. But apparently this is not the case. The building is full of tenants.
	Sir George Reresby Sitwell, 4th baronet
	The following is extracted from The Emperor of the United States of America and Other Magnificent British Eccentrics by Catherine Caufield (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London 1981)
	Although Sir George Sitwell lived in the 19th and 20th centuries, his heart and mind were in the fourteenth. He was lord of the manor of Eckington in Derbyshire for eighty-one years, a position that suited him to perfection, or would have if the world hadn't changed so much in the last 500 years. A sign in his house ran: 'I must ask anyone entering the house never to contradict me in any way, as it interferes with the functioning of the gastric juices and prevents my sleeping at night.
	His interests, though obscure, were wide-ranging. Seven sitting-rooms at Renishaw Hall were co-opted to serve as his studies. All were littered with books and notes, each subject filed in its own specially constructed box. Some of the more intriguing titles for possible future monographs were:
	The Black Death at Rotherham
	The Use of the Bed
	Osbert's Debts
	Acorns as an Article of Medieval Diet
	Sachie's Mistakes
	Pig Keeping in the Thirteenth Century
	The History of the Fork
	Domestic Manners in Sheffield in the Year 1250
	My Advice on Poetry
	Lepers' Squints [my personal favourite]
	Wool-Gathering in Medieval Times and Since
	The Errors of Modern Parents
	The Eckington Dump
	The Origin of the Word Gentleman
	The History of the Cold
	My Inventions
	Any article on the last subject would have to include the Sitwell Egg. With a yolk of smoked meat, a white of compressed rice and a shell of synthetic lime, this was intended to be a convenient and nourishing meal for travellers. Sir George decided to put the marketing of his egg into the experienced hands of Mr Gordon Selfridge, founder of the famous Oxford Street shop. Wearing a silk hat and frock coat, he appeared in Selfridge's office one morning without an appointment, and announced, 'I'm Sir George Sitwell and I've brought my egg with me.' He told no one what Selfridge said, but soon after this encounter the egg project was quietly shelved. There were other inventions, however, including a musical toothbrush that played 'Annie Laurie' and a small revolver for killing wasps.
	Sir George's strength of personality was matched by that of his three talented children, or nearly so, for although they all managed successful careers of their own in the end, his disapproval of virtually everything they did was a major factor in their development. When Osbert announced that he was thinking of writing a novel, he was told, 'Oh I shouldn't do that if I were you! My cousin, Stephen Arthington, had a friend who utterly ruined his health writing a novel!' Of Edith's literary aspirations, his comment was: 'Edith made a great mistake by not going in for lawn tennis.' He was also an enthusiastic advocate of gymnastics: 'Nothing a young man likes so much as a girl who's good at the parallel bars.' This is at least as useful a piece of advice as another of his favourite maxims: 'Nothing makes a man so popular as singing after dinner.' Sitwell's attitude towards his children is summarised in his comment to Osbert: 'It is dangerous for you to lose touch with me for a single day. You never know when you may need the benefit of my experience and advice.'
	Losing touch for as many days as possible became a major preoccupation for Osbert and Sacheverell who invented a mythical yacht, the Rover, and had headed notepaper printed on which they wrote to their father regretting that as the itinerary was as yet unsettled they could not give him an address where they might be contacted. All this time they were in London or Italy, but in spite of Sir George's not infrequent excursions to both places, they were in little danger of being discovered since he rarely recognised his children outside the home.
	Of course the temptation, one might almost say the need, to tease such a father was great. Sir George was particularly vulnerable with regard to modern developments, say since 1650. He knew nothing of modern slang. Shocked by the bad behaviour of an acquaintance who offered him a piece of jewellery and failed to deliver it, Sir George complained to Osbert about modern manners. 'Such a pity to promise people things and then forget about them. It is most inconsiderate - really inexcusable.' The cause of this lament was the parting remark: 'I'll give you a ring, Sir George, on Thursday.'
	At one period Osbert used the word 'blotto' frequently and deliberately until his father finally rose to the bait and asked what it meant. He seemed interested to learn that it was slang for very tired. Shortly afterwards he took the opportunity of demonstrating how au fait he was with modern ways by suggesting to two guests that they should take a rest after lunch as they both seemed quite blotto. The children once got him to book a month's holiday at a lunatic asylum by representing it as a charming retreat, affectionately nicknamed 'the bin' by a core of loyal residents would could hardly bear to tear themselves away.
	Sir George's ignorance of, or refusal to acknowledge, the facts of modern life was extraordinary. He proposed, in the 1930s, an artist's ball, to which he suggested inviting Degas, Renoir, Rodin and Sergeant. [Degas had died in 1917, Renoir in 1919, Rodin in 1917 and Sargent, whom I presume is meant by 'Sergeant', in 1925.] For a while farming was his passion and he gave his long-suffering agent many valuable hints on how it was done in the fourteenth century. During this time he tried to pay, whenever possible, in kind: offering pigs and potatoes to Eton for Sacheverell's school fees. Osbert managed to get his allowance paid in currency, but his father arrived at the proper amount by studying the allowance granted the eldest son of the Lord of the Eckington Manor at the time of the Black Death. Lady Ida, Sir George's wife, got involved with an unscrupulous money-lender and, when her husband refused on principle to bail her out, became the centre of a painful and notorious lawsuit. This dreadful experience confirmed Sir George in his misanthropic views - as he said to Osbert, 'such a mistake to have friends' - and drove him even further into the life of a recluse.
	Sir George was acutely conscious of his many acts of generosity. What some misguided people saw as meddling, was, he knew only too well, self-sacrifice: the dedication of his time and thought to advance the good of others. This could be wearying and occasionally he gave vent to an exhausted plea for understanding. To a Salvation Army lass soliciting funds for Self-Denial Week, he sighed, 'For some people, self-denial week is every week.'
	He gave Osbert the benefit of his experience when in 1914 he wrote from Scarborough to his son, who was then an officer in the trenches: 'though you will not, of course, have to encounter anywhere abroad the same weight of gunfire that your mother and I had to face here, yet my experience may be useful to you. Directly you hear the first shell, retire, as I did, to the Undercroft, and remain there quietly until all firing had ceased. Even then a bombardment … is a strain upon the nervous system - but the best remedy for that, as always, is to keep warm and have plenty of plain, nourishing food at frequent but regular intervals. And, of course, plenty of rest, I find a nap in the afternoon most helpful … and I advise you to try it whenever possible.'
	Among his characteristic acts were banning electricity from Renishaw during his lifetime; limiting guests to two candles apiece; and insisting that the family drink cold boiled water rather than wine during travels in Italy.
	On his journeys alone through Italy Sir George stayed at very primitive inns, quite often sharing a dormitory with eight or ten other men in what was little more than a doss house. But he had with him his valet, Henry Moat, known as 'the Great Man', whose responsibility it was to rig the mosquito net each night and lay out the formal evening dress in which Sir George insisted on appearing for dinner at these tumbledown inns. The mosquito net was basic equipment - at home and abroad - for someone with Sir George's dread of disease and germs. He travelled with an extensive supply of medicines, all mislabelled to discourage - or at least to punish - anybody wanting to sample. His inflatable air cushion, another ever-present companion, was doughnut-shaped so that Sir George could slip it over his arm when not in using it.
	Decorating his two houses, Renishaw in Derbyshire and Montegufoni in Italy, and redesigning their gardens were Sir George's greatest pleasures. He spent enormous sums of money and a great deal of his own and other people's time on an endless succession of alterations and improvements. As Henry Moat said, 'He never entered any place, but he commencing pulling down and building up.'
	Sir George thought nothing of lowering lawns by several feet, making hills, relocating vast trees, creating or draining lakes. He had schemes for constructing or importing fountains, aqueducts, cascades, and statues of all descriptions. Four thousand men were set to work on an artificial lake at Renishaw. A plan was mooted to stencil Chinese blue-willow patterns on his white cows, but the cows' objections put an end to the project. Wooden survey towers loomed out of the lake to provide a vantage point for plotting further changes to the landscape. Nothing was ever completed, but that didn't prevent new projects being planned. And each new scheme struck terror into someone's heart; visiting his son Sacheverell's home in Weston in Northamptonshire in 1924, Sir George casually remarked as he looked out across the grounds. 'I don't propose to do much here; just a sheet of water and a line of statues.
	**********************
	Sir George's wife, Lady Ida, was the daughter of the 1st Earl of Londesborough. She had little, if any, notion of the value of money and didn't have the first idea of any matter connected with business. This led to appear in court on several occasions over money matters, as referred to above. She appeared in court in January 1899, October 1913 and November 1914, each appearance being related to her financial affairs. The most serious case was, however, in March 1915, when she was convicted on charges of conspiracy to cheat and defraud and sentenced to three months' imprisonment.
	The Slade baronetcy case of 1867
	Like so many nineteenth century claims to titles, this case revolved around the legality of an earlier marriage ceremony, and the consequent legitimacy of the children born of that marriage. In 1867, General Marcus Slade challenged the legality of his brother's marriage, and claimed that the baronetcy and estates were rightfully his, rather than his nephew's. The following summary of the case appeared in the Newcastle Courant on 17 May 1867:-
	Celebrated as are the superior law courts for cases of romantic interest, it is seldom that a trial occurs involving more remarkable incidents than are to be found in that which has just been brought to a termination in the Court of Exchequer. It is called the Slade baronetcy case, by which the disposal of considerable estates in Somersetshire is challenged, the legitimacy of a family which has unquestionably been brought up on the estates, on the supposition of the right of inheritance, is impugned, and the question of the validity of the marriage of her who has passed for many years, and still passes, under the name of Lady Slade, is raised.
	To trace the affair from its source, we must begin with the entail of the estates in 1832 by General Sir John Slade. To him succeeded, in turn, his sons Henry and Charles, but they both died without issue, and the estates then devolved upon the third son, Frederick, so well known in legal circles under the name Sir Frederick William Slade. It appears that Sir Frederick, then Mr. Slade, probably without any expectation of succeeding to the family inheritance, whilst travelling on the continent about forty years since made the acquaintance of a Miss Mostyn, who lived with her mother. She was of good family, accomplished, and beautiful, apparently wealthy, and in social position by no means inferior to her admirer. From the evidence it would seem that Miss Mostyn's appearance had created quite a furore in Northern Italy, and Italians [who] are still living who can speak with fervour of her beauty in 1825. This is not the only romantic recollection attached to the lady's life, but it may be passed over for the present. About 1833 she was married to Mr. Slade in England. This is beyond all question, though it is affirmed that the marriage was not made public till 1848, when her husband succeeded to the baronetcy and estates in Somersetshire. [This is certainly not correct - he did not succeed to the title until 1859.] Since that period, however, Sir Frederick and Lady Slade lived in the enjoyment of social rank and distinction, their children were called by the family name, and no cloud - at least no cloud apparent to the public - obscured their happiness till the death of Sir Frederick in 1863.
	Then a singular difficulty arose, which has yet to be solved by the judges of the Exchequer Court. They have heard the evidence, and it is for them to decide what is legal or otherwise. In the meanwhile, the history may be given without prejudicing what is to follow. Miss Mostyn's beauty, while some gentlemen, who cannot be called chickens, still remember, did not alone move the impressionable Italians. One Baron Von Korber, a lieutenant in the Austrian service, was struck by it. He sought her hand, and won it. This was in 1825. But there was a difficulty in the way. The baron was a Protestant, the lady belonged to the Roman Catholic Church. Now the lovers were in Lombardy, where, as elsewhere, mixed marriages were forbidden except by express permission of the Pope, and it is certain that in this case the permission of the Pope was not obtained. Von Korber applied to the priest of the parish in Milan in which Miss Mostyn resided, but he declined to tie the conjugal knot. He knew the law, and he obeyed it. But his refusal, it seems, daunted neither Von Korber nor Miss Mostyn, for they, or he, at least, applied to a military chaplain of superior rank, and the thing was done.
	But the marriage was a most unhappy one. In six months the young couple separated never to meet again. A divorce a mensa et thoro [i.e. "from table and bed" - it refers to a type of divorce in which a couple is legally separated, but the marriage is still considered to be valid. The legitimacy of any children in the marriage remains intact, but the partners may not re-marry. This type of divorce allows partners to live apart without fear of being taken to court for desertion] was granted to them, and Von Korber's conscience permitted him to accept an annuity from his divorced wife in lieu of her affection and household management.
	The question which the Court of Exchequer must decide is the legality or illegality of this marriage. It is apparent that there was an incompatibility of temper, but that is not the matter at issue, because it is not sufficient to establish the validity of the divorce or the invalidity of the marriage. Both sides agree that, according to the Austrian law, the only person competent to celebrate a marriage is the man who had the cure of souls over one of the bridal persons, and the military chaplain could have no ecclesiastical authority over Miss Mostyn. Had he any over Von Korber? On one side it is contended that he had none whatever. Von Korber was a Protestant, and the regimental chaplain, who belonged to another sect, could not have had any ecclesiastical authority over him. But then, it is said, a soldier in the Austrian service differs from a civilian in this respect. It is insisted that an Austrian soldier is under special legislation, which "cures" him spiritually whether he is willing or not, so that Von Korber in this sense was performing a strictly legal act when he, a Protestant soldier, went to a Roman Catholic priest to be married.
	The business of the Court of Exchequer is to clear up and decide these subtle points; but though the solution of them will decide this important case, something still remains to be told of the interesting history. The plaintiff [General Marcus Slade], who claims the estates and the baronetcy, is a younger [twin] brother of the late Sir Frederick. He is a general in the army, and he holds the position of Governor of Guernsey Castle. He declares that he challenged the marriage of his brother as illegal as soon as he heard of it in 1848, and the correspondence is extant to prove his assertion. In 1860, his nephew, the eldest son of Sir Frederick Slade, wrote to him on the subject, and the general in reply urged him to settle the case by law. He acknowledged him as the son of his brother, but not as his legitimate son, for Von Korber did not die till 1854, and then he added that, whatever the legal decision might be, his nephew might reckon upon him as a friend at all times. His letter was frank and manly in tone, nor was that of his nephew at all deficient in these qualities. For the estates, he said, he did not care, but for his legitimacy he did, and if his uncle would help him to procure a legal decision, he would have the case cleared up as soon as possible.
	In this painful romance there is, therefore, no family bitterness or animosity. It is one of the curiosities of the law of entail, one of the pleasures the landed gentry indulge in by the rule of primogeniture. It is absurd to suppose that Sir Frederick and Lady Slade did not believe they were married in 1833. It is contrary to evidence to imagine that they did not bring up their family since 1848 according to the rules of legitimacy prevailing in their circle, and yet, though Sir Frederick Slade could, and no doubt did, dispose of his personalty by will, he must leave to a law court to resolve whether those nearest to him in blood and love could succeed to the property he enjoyed in his lifetime, or whether it must go to others over whom he had no legal control or direction.
	When the Court of Exchequer gave its judgment in June 1867, the four judges were locked at 2-all. The Chief Baron, Sir Fitzroy Kelly, and one of the other three Puisne Barons, Sir Samuel Martin found in favour of Sir Alfred Slade. The remaining two Barons, Sir George Bramwell (later Baron Bramwell) and Sir Gillery Pigott, found in favour of General Slade. In the event of a split decision, it was the custom at that time for the junior Baron (in this case, Sir Gillery Pigott) to withdraw his opinion, and the case to be then transferred to the House of Lords for judgment. Before this could occur, however, the case was settled out of court, as reported in the Aberdeen Journal of 31 July 1867:-
	The Slade baronetcy case has been compromised. General Slade, according to the terms of rrangement brought about by the action of mutual friends, abandons all claim to the title and the estates, receiving from his nephew, the present inheritor, £28,000, and the amount of costs for which he had become liable in connection with the recent litigation.
	Sir Benjamin Julian Alfred Slade, 7th baronet
	Sir Benjamin is a magnificent eccentric whose exploits have appeared in the newspapers in recent years. His major goal in life appears to be the discovery of a male heir to inherit his 13th century estate, variously valued at between £7 million to £20 million.
	In February 2007, it was reported that Sir Benjamin "is a firm believer in his aristocratic bloodline, claiming that he can trace his ancestry back to Alfred the Great. For this reason, he hopes to use DNA testing to find his closest genetic relative in the U.S. 'I'm hoping it won't be some cowpoke or someone who lives on a trailer park surrounded by rattlesnakes. I would have a screaming fit if I found out it was some chap like that. I want someone with a bit of money and a couple of yachts.'"
	Sir Benjamin later changed tack and began seeking a woman to give him an heir. "I need a male heir. I'm the last of the line. Father would be appalled. It's a terrible disgrace. When you die without an heir they cut your crest in half on your coffin with a sword and some other lot go and grab it. Awful. It's like losing your rugger colours."
	When describing the ideal woman, Sir Benjamin said, "They wouldn't want to be gypsies. They wouldn't want to be Guardian readers either. Africa's out. So is anywhere that's got green in its flag, begins with an 'I' or where they don’t wear overcoats in the winter. Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Iraq, Iran - all out. I won't go to holidays in these places. I don't want anything to do with them. Oh, and the breeders couldn't be too eccentric because I'm eccentric, so you'd get someone coming out who's utterly raving."
	Sir Benjamin said he has nine months supply of "little wrigglers" frozen and ready for the right woman to carry his child. The French, drug users, communists, and homosexuals have also been ruled out.
	In keeping with Sir Benjamin's sense of civic duty, he offered the services of his dog as a best man for gay weddings at his country seat. According to his master, the dog, a labrador-Doberman cross named Jasper, is ideally suited for this task. "Jasper is absolutely perfect for the role. For one thing, he is gay himself. He may also appeal to the more cosmopolitan among potential same-sex suitors as he is anti-hunting, a pacifist and probably supports New Labour."
	In October 2007, Sir Benjamin made a claim on his insurers for £4,000 after he alleged that a randy peacock had 'sexually attacked' one of his employee's cars. He subsequently banned peacock blue Lexus cars from the estate's car park. According to Sir Benjamin, the incident proved that the peacock was gay, since peahens are brown and only males are blue. He said that the peacock had damaged the car because it looked like "another peacock boy. He attacked the panels so hard that the car needs a total respray. The insurers are not very happy about it. They've had claims for all sorts of things like lions biting people, but never have they heard of a peacock sexually attacking a car."
	For an hilarious interview with Sir Benjamin, cut and paste the following link into your browser:-
	http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/sir-benjamin-slade-i-am-going-to-be-a-mega-megastar-815130.html
	A more recent article on Sir Benjamin's efforts appeared in the "Daily Mail on 21 April 2017, written by Jane Fryer:-
	Sir Benjamin Julian Alfred Slade is a rheumy-eyed Casanova who has a most disconcerting habit of pointing his crotch and talking about 'business down there'.
	He describes his ideal woman as 'a big strong healthy warrior, the bigger the better - if I see a tall woman coming into a room, I just fall over backwards. My tongue hangs out. It gets exciting."
	Last week he caused a furore when he denounced one of his recent (extremely attractive) companions, Bridget Convet, 50, as 'too old to have children' and reminded all young, fertile ladies that he is once again 'interviewing hard' for the position of Lady Slade.
	"I have had a few proposals, " he said. "But sometimes the women are past their sell-by date and have been over the guns a few times."
	Sir Ben, as he likes to be addressed, is 70 years old himself.
	Subsequently he announced that he wanted to 'road-test' young women, adding: "It would be nice if they were a breeder, of an age where they can have a couple of sons."
	On paper - away from the leery, pink-cheeked flesh - Sir Ben's pedigree is impeccable. His ancestors fought in the Crimean War; he had links to Horatio Nelson; General Sir John Slade, who bought the family seat, Maunsel House, in 1772, danced with Marie Antoinette; and his aunt Madeleine Slade, as he indelicately puts it, "s*****d [Mahatma] Gandhi."
	He is worth about £20 million and owns two Somerset stately homes, 13th-century Maunsel House and 19th-century Woodlands Castle, from which he runs a thriving wedding business. He also has thousands of acres, a handful of farms, a grouse shoot in Scotland, a collection of moth-eaten stuffed animal heads, hundreds of guns and wardrobes of red trousers.
	Which presumably is why he is so desperate for an heir (plus a spare) to inherit it all when he dies. "Daughters don't count," he says. "Wonderful things to have around, of course, but they don't count."
	Over the years he has been relentless in his quest, rattling through a wife, Pauline Myburgh; several long-term lovers including Fiona Aitken, now wife of the Earl of Carnarvon and chatelaine of Highclere Castle, where Downton [Abbey] was filmed. ("absolutely impossible woman; social astronaut, drove me mad!"); actress Kirsten Hughes and, by his own account, more members of European 'jet-trash' society than most gentry have had roast grouse dinners.
	But he can't seem to get it right. "I'm the worst judge of women in England. I've had five mad women on the trot; it's been very difficult."
	In 2007 he made a public appeal for an heir of sorts, offering his entire estate to whichever stranger most closely matched his DNA, so long as they weren't Guardian readers, drug-users or communists. That didn't work because the winner, Isaac Slade, who fronts U.S. rock group The Fray, was too busy with his band to deal with sweeping driveways and the worry of dry rot.
	Then in 2012, after Kirsten, then 49, had, according to him, "run off with the handyman," Sir Ben wasted no time in advertising to replace not only the handyman but Kirsten, too, offering a £50,000 salary plus car, house, food and holidays.
	Crucially, the successful candidate would have a shotgun certificate, be able to run two castles and must be able to breed two sons (it didn't matter if she had bred before). And when that didn't bear fruit, he had his sperm frozen ("it's very good stuff") and carried on chatting up 'any bit of crumpet that moves' - so long as she didn't come from a country with green in its flag, beginning with an "I", or anywhere they don't wear overcoats in the winter.
	But still there was no heir apparent riding a trike through the great hall.
	So is he really an appalling man, playing for laughs or publicity, or has desperation made him so ungallant?
	Whatever the truth, his recent comments have not gone down well. Bridget, unsurprisingly, was hopping mad, not least because they haven't been an item since 2014 and she is actually happily engaged to a chap called Alister. Online, thousands have denounced Sir Ben as a sexist dinosaur.
	"I'm not sexist, " he says. "Men want to carve a joint and pour the drinks, women want to make sure the table looks nice. It's a partnership!"
	But a fair few, perhaps tempted by his surprisingly good skin as much as his fortune, got in touch this week. "I've been inundated with offers!" he chirps happily, oblivious to the feminist blood boiling around him. "I'm going to have a party and get them all down. The more the merrier!"
	Hugely encouraged, he has even added new criteria to his list of required attributes. Driving and shooting licences are now non-negotiable. The former is to drive him to long boozy lunches, while the latter is more pressing since police found an unlicensed shotgun in his bedroom - he liked to shoot foxes in his pyjamas - and he nearly landed in prison. Scorpios are also a no-no. And now he is slowing down a bit, so is anyone much under 30 or over 40.
	A 'terribly exotic Spanish creature' he dated 18 months ago was duly informed of this necessity. She said: "Darling, you're too old for me." And I said:"No darling, you'll be 40 next year - you're too old for me!"
	Sir Ben, who made his fortune in shipping but then put most of his money into his estate, is now asset-rich but cash-poor, so life with him will not be all butlers, polished silverware and devilled kidneys. He re-uses teabags and lives on vegetable juice, Ryvita, watery porridge and the occasional gull's egg as a treat.
	To save £15,000 tax a year, he has moved out of Maunsel House into a half-built farmhouse where he scrimps on the heating, shares a bedroom with his Jack Russell, Bully, and labrador, Gerald, named after the late Duke of Westminster, and has an inspirational message from Donald Trump by his bed (he and Trump's first wife, Ivana, were good pals).
	He rises at six, works all hours on his wedding business and wears holey jumpers. "Most women don't understand," he says. "It's a nightmare running this place. The heating bill's £50,000 a year. They don't tend to stay."
	He is also constantly tired thanks to a sleep disorder, and has suffered a brief problem with his prostate - or 'bicycle pump' as he calls it - which he keeps 'fired up' with oysters. Other than that he claims to be in excellent health and even hangs upside down in a harness every morning to reduce stress. "Stress is not good - and it's not good for down there, either," he says, stabbing at his crotch yet again. "That's why I need a good woman to help with it all. A good woman could be worth £100k to me, minimum, and she could pop out some heirs while she's at it."
	But, given his health problem, is he up to the job? "Mao Tse Tung was bonking away when he was 80! So was Moses. I'm slowing down a bit - I just don't get enough practice in," he says sadly. Then he tells me he isn't a fan of Viagra, preferring a similar drug called Cialis: "It's really good - lasts all weekend." There is also a concoction that his French nephew obtains from the Far East, which he puts in his tea and which makes him go 'like greased lightning.'
	I wonder if all this is bluster and fantasy. So we move back to his childhood, which went from happy to unutterably miserable when he was ten and his elder brother died (in a car crash), followed by his mother the next year, then his uncle, then his father the year after that. Young Ben was shipped off to a distant relative for his troubled teens, then packed off to Australia on a one-way ticket, where he worked in the mines and on sheep stations and slept rough. Despite having to overcome the odds, his grief and terrible dyslexia he pulled through, made a fortune in shipping and bought back the family seat from his aunt.
	Given the parallels, I ask about Prince Harry's mental health charity. But he just harrumphs. "They're all nuts, really. And his mother was totally screwed up. Everyone knows there are three families you should never marry into and the Spencers is one!"
	It is easy to see why he wants children - "if I drop dead today, this place will be on the market in a month" - and he is convinced he'd make a good father. "People tell me 'you're too old. You'll die.' So what? I was bloody orphaned. Anyway, a nice young attractive widow with two castles and a title is going to get snapped up pretty quickly."
	What is surprising is that he never did manage to father a child, despite all that frantic rutting. He blames what he calls "Fallopian complications" and claims "too many cats" were responsible for his marriage failure. But what about adoption? He looks horrified. "People don't give anything away that's any good, do they?" And a baby from overseas, he says, was completely out of the question. "If you're living in the countryside and into hunting and shooting, an Aboriginal or an African probably wouldn't go down too well round here. They might not let someone like me adopt anyway." This is probably the wisest thing he has said so far.
	On the flip side, though, having Sir Ben as your dad might be a relentlessly politically incorrect experience and you'd never dare bring anyone home for tea, but it would never be dull. He is the sort of man who throws wild parties, has 5,000 people in his address book and is someone to whom mad things inevitably happen.
	Who else would have a peacock called Ron Davies (after the Labour MP whose career was destroyed by a 'moment of madness' involving a homosexual encounter on Clapham Common) which caused £4,000 damage to a peacock-blue car in a bout of misplaced ardour? Sir Ben also cited a tomcat as co-respondent in his divorce. Then there was the time he went to court to fight for custody of a rescue dog called Jasper that had been rehomed to a brewery heiress. He was bequeathed to Slade, along with a trust fund that rose in value to £100,000 when his owner died.
	Extraordinarily, Sir Ben's exes seem genuinely fond of him. "For some reason they all want to come back - even Kirsten, who behaved disgracefully. Because I might not be the best looker but there's always something happening and I make them laugh." And then, just as he is finally starting to sound more like a naughty uncle than a sexist oaf, he blows it by describing the shape of his favourite breasts. "I do like them pointing upwards. I once had an American girlfriend who had them pointing upwards. Just wonderful. And big, ideally, but I certainly don't want some tired old flap they can throw over the shoulder!"
	Oh stop it, Sir Ben! You are clearly far brighter that you let on and work like a Trojan, but it's as if you have a constant need to offend - especially when, against all odds, someone might actually be warming to you.
	Sir Andrew Slanning, 2nd and last baronet
	Sir Andrew was murdered in November 1700. The following account of his murder is taken from Celebrated Trials and Remarkable Cases of Criminal Jurisprudence from the earliest records to the year 1825 by George Borrow [1803‑1881] (6 vols, Knight and Lacey, London, 1825).
	One evening John Cowland, with some other bon vivants, followed Sir Andrew Slanning, bart. who had made a temporary acquaintance with an orange-woman while in the pit at the Drury Lane play-house, and retired with her as soon as the play was ended. They had gone but a few yards before Mr. Cowland put his arm round the woman's neck; on which Sir Andrew desired he would desist, as she was his wife.
	Cowland, knowing Sir Andrew was married to a woman of honour, gave him the lie, and swords were drawn on both sides; but some gentlemen coming up at this juncture, no immediate ill consequence happened. They all now agreed to adjourn to the Rose tavern; and Capt. Wagget having there used his utmost endeavours to reconcile the offended parties, it appeared that his mediation was attended with success; but, as they were going upstairs to drink a glass of wine, Mr. Cowland drew his sword, and stabbed Sir Andrew in the belly, who finding himself wounded, cried out "murder". One of Lord Warwick's servants, and two other persons who were within the house, ran up immediately, and disarmed Cowland of his sword, which was bloody to the depth of five inches, and took him into custody. Cowland was instantly conducted before a justice of the peace, who committed him; and on Dec. the 5th, 1700, he was tried at the Old Bailey on three indictments - the first at the common law, the second on the statute of stabbing, and the third on the coroner's inquest for the murder. Every fact was fully proved on the trial; and among other things, it was deposed, that the deceased possessed an estate of £20,000 a year, and that his family became extinct by his death; and that he had been a gentleman of great good-nature, and by no means disposed to animosity. On Cowland's being found guilty, sentence of death was passed on him; and though great interest was made to obtain a pardon, he was executed at Tyburn the 20th Dec. 1700.
	Sir Henry Slingsby, 1st baronet
	Sir Henry was executed in June 1658 due to his loyalty to the Royalist cause during the English Civil War. Following a planned Royalist insurrection in 1655, Slingsby was arrested and imprisoned at Hull, and later at York, where he remained until 1658, but following a further royal plot against the Commonwealth in that year, he was brought before the High Court and charged with treason. He was initially sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered, but the sentence was later commuted to beheading, the sentence being carried out on Tower Hill on 8 June 1658. The following account of his execution is taken from The characters of the several noblemen and gentlemen that have died in the defence of their respective princes … by Thomas Salmon [London 1724]:-
	About Eleven of the Clock, Sir Henry Slingsby was brought from the Tower to the Scaffold on Tower-Hill; whither being come, he fell upon his Knees, and for a short Space pray'd privately. Then standing up, he did in a short Speech, and with a very low Voice, address himself to Mr. Sheriff Robinson, telling him, that what he had to say he would speak to him; which was to this purpose:
	That he had receiv'd a Sentence to die, upon account of his endeavouring to betray the Garrison of Hull: But said, All that he did in that Business he was drawn into by others.
	That the Officers of that Garrison did believe he had some greater Design in hand, and therefore they would needs pump him to the bottom: But what he spoke to them in private was brought into Evidence against him. He likewise said, That he did no more than any Person would have done that was so brought on.
	That he had made many Applications (by his Friends) for a Reprieve, but found his Highness was inexorable.
	He did confess, that he did deliver a Commission (as it was charged against him:) But said, that it was an old Commission, and what he meant was well known to himself; but what Constructions others had made of it might appear by his present Condition.
	He discover'd little Sense of Sorrow, or Fear of Death; but said, He was ready to submit, or Words to like purpose.
	Then he addressed himself to private Prayer again; and kneeling down to the Block, he pray'd privately for a short space: Then he laid his Head upon the Block, and at the Sign given, the Executioner sever'd his Head from his Body at one Blow: And his Friends put his Body into a Coffin, and remov'd it into a close Coach prepared near the Place.
	Sir Charles Slingsby, 10th baronet
	Sir Charles, along with five others, was drowned in 1869 when the boat upon which he was crossing a river capsized. The following edited account of the accident appeared in the Dublin Freeman's Journal on 8 February 1869:-
	[After describing at length the names of the persons who had met for a fox-hunt] … no fox was found until the hounds reached Monckton Whin; but a good run of about an hour's duration was had towards Copgrove and Newby Hall, and near the latter the fox and the pack crossed the river Ure. Several of the gentlemen who were in pursuit attempted to cross the river at a ford some distance up the stream, but Sir Charles Slingsby and a majority of those who were close up made for the ferry, which is almost directly opposite Newby-hall, and signalled for the boat to be sent across. Swollen by the late rains, and to a great extent diverted from its natural channel, the river, at this point some fifty or sixty yards broad, swept along with a strong deep current.
	With little or no hesitation the master of the hounds [Sir Charles] sprang into the boat, to be piloted across by the Newby-hall gardener and his son, and this example was so largely followed that in a very short time some twelve or fourteen gentlemen with their horses, crowded into a vessel intended to accommodate only half that number … [a number of others] who were either unable to find room in the boat or had their doubts as to its safety, remained on the banks awaiting its return. No warning voice cautioned them when they started on what proved to some of them a fatal journey; indeed, their apparent luck in having gained the start of the others was looked on many envious eyes. Any such feeling was, however, of short duration.
	Seizing the chain by which the flat-bottomed boat is propelled, Captain Vyner and his brother pushed it off from the river side, and sent the vessel right into the stream. Before one-third of the distance had been traversed, Sir Charles Slingsby's horse became restive, and kicked the animal belonging to Sir George Wombwell. The latter - a high-mettled chestnut - returned the kick, and something very like a panic arose among the horses. The boat was swayed first to one side and then to the other, and finally it was fairly turned bottom upwards.
	The scene which then ensued was of a very painful character. For a moment the slimy bottom of the boat, rocked to and fro by the struggling of the men and horses, was all that could be seen by the spectators on the bank; then here and there in different parts of the stream heads began to appear only to sink again amid agonised cries, and hands and arms were flung up in despair. Horses were seen to battle with the current, striking out regardless of the injuries they inflicted on their masters, who were also swept by the current out of the reach of those anxious to afford relief. In some cases, however, the prompt measures taken by the spectators were effectual. Those who could swim cast off their coats and plunged to save their friends, while others, not so happily gifted, took less vigorous, though not less useful, steps. Lines formed of whips tied together, and thrown within reach of the drowning men, and several beams of wood which fortunately lay scattered about, were quickly launched on the stream.
	Captain Vyner was one of the first to get his head out of water, and to save himself from the current by clinging to the upturned vessel. After a vigorous struggle he reached the top of the boat and was able to assist first Sir George Wombwell and afterwards one of the York officers to the same position. Mr. White got on shore by means of the chain stretched across the ferry, while others were rescued by means adopted for their safety from the banks. In a very few minutes, however, it was found that six men and 11 horses had been drowned. Two horses were rescued.
	Sir Charles Slingsby was seen by the spectators on the bank to strike out for the opposite shore, but when nearing it he threw up his hands, and the last seen of him was his body floating down the river with his head and legs under water … The body of Sir Charles Slingsby was discovered 300 yards below the scene of the accident.

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