THE HONORABLE FREDERICA CROFTON (1816-81) was born after the suicide of her father, Sir Edward, 3rd Baronet Crofton. Frederica’s ancestry, documented in Crofton memoirs,* stemed from John Crofton who arrived in Ireland in 1565 with the Earl of Essex, and acquired land in Roscommon, Leitrim, and Sligo. From 1576 until 1597 he was Escheator General of Ireland, meaning that if property had no legal heir he seized it for Queen Elizabeth.

The Crofton Baronetcy was created in 1758 for Marcus Lowther MP who took the name Crofton when he married Catherine upon whom the family estate devolved when her brother died without issue. The Barony of Crofton was created for Frederica's grandmother, Lady Anne Crofton. In 1797, just after Sir Edward Crofton, 2nd Baronet, of the Mote, had been offered a barony in the Peerage of Ireland, he died. So the honour was bestowed upon his widow instead. That enabled Frederica to obtain, two years after her marriage, a patent granting her the precedence of a baron's daughter.

Frederica was brought up in Mote Park House, her family's home on their 7,000-acre estate at Ballymurray, Roscommon, Ireland. It was built about 1775 by John Crofton (1740-1813) to replace a castle which the Croftons erected in 1620 but which had been ravaged by fire.

Sir Edward Crofton, 3rd Baronet Crofton, had the architect Sir Richard Morrisson design an extension for him which more than doubled the size of the house. Fire struck again in 1865: Mote Park was destroyed but was rebuilt with modifications. Because of the Land Acts most of the estate was sold piecemeal early last century. The house was neglected. About 1960 the Land Commission demolished it.