| Administrative History | Henry Harpur, later Crewe (1763-1819), 7th Baronet, was the son of Henry and Frances Elizabeth Harpur. He was born at 37 Upper Brook Street, Mayfair, London, and baptised at St George's, Hanover Square, London. He matriculated in 1781 from Christ Church College, Oxford, and appears subsequently to have travelled in Europe. A newspaper report records that in May 1789, (three months after the death of his father), Henry Harpur's birthday was marked by a celebration at Calke attended not only by "tenants and neighbours but [also] strangers of every description … regaled with unbounded liberality and hospitality." Henry made what his mother regarded as "an unfortunate connection" with Nanette Hawkins, once a lady's maid at Calke. Henry Harpur and Nanette Hawkins were married in 1792, a year after the birth of the first of their nine children. Henry Harpur pursued interests in taxidermy; race horses were bred at Calke and a pack of foxhounds was maintained. Henry Harpur served as an officer in The Derbyshire Yeomanry, raising a troop of soldiers at Calke. In 1794 he served as High Sheriff of Derbyshire: in same year he commissioned the composer Joseph Haydn to write two marches for the Yeomanry. In 1808 by royal licence Henry Harpur assumed the surname Crewe, derived from his great grandmother, wife of John Harpur, 4th Baronet. Henry Crewe died in 1819, thrown from his carriage during a journey from Marylebone, London to Barham (Boreham) House, Hertfordshire. He was buried at Calke. There are portraits of Henry and Nanette Crewe at Calke Abbey. |