The next squire of Trafford also bore the name of Humphrey. He married a daughter of Sir Oswald Mosley, but the union was childless. In the very curious “Characteristic Strictures,” written by the Rev. Thomas Seddon, and consisting of remarks on an imaginary exhibition of portraits of Lancashire and Cheshire notabilities, we have the following picture of him as “the good Samaritan”: “That universal benevolence is an enemy to restraint, and that character is not the effect of an illiberal spirit, is here most laudably expressed. The pure motives of compassion cannot be restrained by religious tenets; the manner in which these sentiments actuate the Samaritan to relieve his fellow-creature in distress, is most beautifully sublime, and every after-stroke gives lustre to the whole. The formality of the habit is the only fault in this performance, as it is better calculated for a recluse than a travelling character.” By a will dated June 5th, 1779, the estates were devised by Humphrey to his collateral cousin, John Trafford, of Croston, who settled at the ancient home of his race, and obtained an act of Parliament in 1793 giving him power to let lands on building leases, and to lease the waste moss lands in the parishes of Manchester and Eccles for ninety-nine years. Mr. Thomas Joseph Trafford, who in 1815 succeeded to the estate, was the fifth son, and was born at Croston in 1778. His marriage, in 1803, with the daughter of Mr. Francis Colman, of Hellersdown, Devonshire, resulted in a family of fourteen children. He was a county magnate of high consideration, served as High Sheriff in 1834, and was in 1841 created a baronet and received the royal authority to revert to an old method of spelling the family name. Sir Thomas Joseph de Trafford died in 1852, and was succeeded by Sir Humphrey, who was born in 1808, and in 1855 married the Lady Mary Annette Talbot, the eldest sister of the 17th Earl of Shrewsbury. The numerous issue of this union are the bearers of a name that has endured for so many centuries that some of the families entered in the peerages look but like parvenus beside it. He was succeeded by his son, Sir Humphrey, who in consequence of the contiguity of the Manchester Ship Canal, found it desirable to leave the old home of the family.[7] The possessions of the family in Lancashire were thus set forth in the return of landowners in 1873, which is generally credited with under rather than over-estimating the value of the estates of the larger landowners:— Gross estimated rental. A. R. P. £ s. Sir Humphrey de Trafford 6,454 2 38 22,158 7 J. R. de Trafford (Croston) 1,157 0 32 2,773 8 Paul Trafford (Liverpool) 9 1 12 14 10 Randolphus de Trafford (Croston Hall) 265 3 14 453 10