Lumley family, Earls of Scarbrough

The Lumley family owned land in County Durham by the 12th century. Its estates, the core of which was at Lumley Castle, situated on the Durham coalfield by the River Wear, were extended in the 15th century through the marriage of George, Lord Lumley and the heiress of Roger Thornton, a Newcastle-upon-Tyne merchant. Created (Irish) Viscounts in 1628, the family achieved further eminence when Richard Lumley (d. 1721) was promoted Earl of Scarbrough in 1690.

The Saundersons were merchants and landowners who built up estates in Yorkshire (West Riding) and Lincolnshire through marriage and purchase in the 15th and 16th centuries. Important acquisitions were made at Saxby (Lincolnshire) and, in 1549, Sandbeck (Yorkshire, West Riding), a former possession of the Cistercian abbey of Roche. Roche itself was bought in 1627, and in the early 18th century Glentworth and Winteringham (Lincolnshire) were inherited from the Wray family. The Lincolnshire estate, which included Reasby and Skegness, was scattered through Lindsey, but that in Yorkshire (including Maltby, Stainton and Stone) was concentrated around Sandbeck. From the 18th century nearby Tickhill was leased from the Duchy of Lancaster.

The Saunderson family, created baronets in 1612 and Viscounts Castleton in the peerage of Ireland in 1627, was extinguished on the death in 1723 of the first and only Earl of Castleton (created 1720). He left his Yorkshire and Lincolnshire estates to Thomas Lumley (1691-1752), second son of his cousin the 1st Earl of Scarbrough, who adopted the name Lumley-Saunderson, and succeeded his brother as 3rd Earl of Scarbrough in 1739.

The County Durham estate, together with an estate at Stansted (Sussex) acquired by the marriage of John, Lord Lumley (d. 1609) and Jane, daughter and co-heir of the 12th Earl of Arundel, passed to James Lumley, another son of the 1st Earl of Scarbrough. On James Lumley's death in 1766 the County Durham estate reverted to the 4th Earl but Stansted descended to Lumley's nephew the 2nd Earl of Halifax. Owing to an inheritance dispute involving the will of Sir George Savile, 8th Bt (1726-84), of Rufford (Nottinghamshire), the 7th and 8th Earls held the Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire (West Riding) estates of the Savile family between 1832 and 1856 (see Lumley-Savile of Rufford, no 65). When the 8th Earl died unmarried in 1856 the Lumley and Saunderson estates were inherited by a cousin as 9th Earl of Scarbrough, while the Savile estates passed to Henry Savile Lumley (d. 1881) and afterwards to the 1st Baron Savile of Rufford (d. 1896), both natural sons of the 8th Earl.

An urban estate at Warrington (Cheshire) entered the family through the 11th Earl's mother Constance Ellinor (d. 1933), eldest granddaughter of John Wilson Patten (1802-92), Baron Winmarleigh. Property in the North Riding of Yorkshire (Thornton, etc) and the East Riding (Scampston), formerly owned by John, Lord Latimer (d. 1577), descended to his granddaughter Elizabeth, Viscountess Lumley (d. 1658), widow of Sir William Sandys, and was sold after her death.

Estates in 1883: Lincs 11,270 acres, Yorks WR 8,640 acres, Co Durham 1,788 acres, total 21,698 acres worth £31,597 a year.