John Crichton, 3rd Earl Erne

He was the eldest son of Lt.-Col. Hon. John Creighton, Governor of Hurst Castle and the former Jane Weldon (a daughter of Walter Weldon). His siblings included Maj. Hon. Henry Crichton (who married Elizabeth Hawkshaw), Lt.-Col. Hon. Samuel Crichton, Jane Anne Crichton (wife of Robert Fowler, eldest son of Rt. Rev. Robert Fowler, Bishop of Ossory), Lady Catherine Crichton (wife of the Rev. Francis Saunderson Rural), Lady Helen Crichton, Lady Charlotte Crichton, Lady Mary Crichton (wife of the Rev. John H. King).[1]

His paternal grandfather was John Creighton, 1st Earl Erne (eldest surviving son of Abraham Creighton, 1st Baron Erne) and the former Catherine Howard (sister of Ralph Howard, 1st Viscount Wicklow).[1]

In 1842, he succeeded to the earldom of Erne upon the death of his uncle, the 2nd Earl Erne. His uncle Abraham had been an MP for Lifford from 1790 to 1797 before he was declared insane in November 1798 and then incarcerated at Brooke House, London, for the next forty years. Abraham had succeeded to the titles upon the death of his father in September 1828. The third earl subsequently changed the spelling of the family name to Crichton.[2]

In 1845 he was elected an Irish Representative Peer in the House of Lords, which he remained until his death. He also served as Lord Lieutenant of County Fermanagh from 1845 to 1885. Erne was made a Knight of the Order of St Patrick in 1868 and in 1876 he was created Baron Fermanagh, of Lisnaskea in the County of Fermanagh, in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. This title gave him and his descendants an automatic seat in the House of Lords.[3]

Lord Erne is also remembered as the employer of the hapless Captain Charles Boycott,[4] whose mishandling of relations with agricultural workers on Lord Erne's estate in County Mayo caused a political and public order crisis and provoked the strategy that gave the English language the term to boycott.[5]

On 6 July 1837, Lord Erne was married to Selina Griselda Beresford, the second daughter of The Rev. Charles Cobbe Beresford, Rector of Termonmaguirk, and Amelia Montgomery (a daughter of Sir William Montgomery, 1st Baronet). Together, they were the parents of:[1]

• Lady Louisa Anne Catherine Crichton (1838–1866), who died unmarried.
• John Henry Crichton, 4th Earl Erne (1839–1914), who married Lady Florence Mary Cole, daughter of William Willoughby Cole, 3rd Earl of Enniskillen.
• Hon. Charles Frederick Crichton (1841–1918), who married Lady Madeline Olivia Susan Taylour, eldest daughter of Thomas Taylour, 3rd Marquess of Headfort and Amelia Thompson (only child of Lord Mayor of London William Thompson), in 1873
• Hon. Sir Henry George Louis Crichton (1844–1922), the aide de camp to King Edward VII. He married Letitia Grace Cole-Hamilton, third daughter of Maj. Arthur Willoughby Cole-Hamilton in 1869. After her death in 1888, he married Lady Emma Baring, only daughter of Thomas Baring, 1st Earl of Northbrook, in 1890.

Lord Erne died in October 1885, aged 83, and was succeeded in his titles by his eldest son John, who became a Conservative government minister.[6]

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by the Earl Erne
• Leigh Rayment's Peerage Pages
• Lundy, Darryl. "FAQ". The Peerage.
• John Crichton, 3rd Earl of Erne (1802-1885), Representative peer and politician at the National Portrait Gallery, London