With a rent roll second only to the duke of Devonshire in the county, Crewe was a prominent local landowner, and committed defender of Church and constitution, who expressed distaste for the violent political rhetoric of the 1830s, likening the reform debate to a fight between ‘two savage mastiffs’.1G. Crewe, Squire of Calke Abbey: extracts from the journals of Sir George Crewe, 1815-1834, ed. C. Kitching (1995), 12 Dec. 1831 (at 83); Gent. Mag. (1844), xxi. 199-201 (at 199). A devout evangelical, ‘it was rather sneeringly remarked, that Sir George was too conscientious for a member of Parliament’.2Ibid., 200. His grandfather, Sir Henry Harpur, 6th bt., was member for Derbyshire, 1761-68, and his father, Sir Henry Harpur, 7th bt., received royal permission to add the surname Crewe, 11 Apr. 1808, which was part of an unsuccessful claim to the dormant barony of Crewe.3HP Commons 1754-1790, ii. 587-88; London Gazette, 19 Apr. 1808; L. Cox, Over the hills to Calke: 150 years of memories of Calke Abbey and the Harpur Crewes (2000), 83, 85. He inherited the family estates and title when his father, whose marriage to the actress ‘Nanny’ Hawkins had caused a contemporary scandal, was flung from his carriage, landing on his head, which ‘occasioned his instantaneous death’.4Examiner, 14 Feb. 1819; Cox, Calke Abbey, 85. Strongly influenced by his evangelical grandmother, when serving as High Sheriff in 1821 he ended the balls held on the eve of the Assizes, which he considered distasteful, and for the remainder of the decade he concentrated on improving his estates, including substantially remodelling Calke Abbey, and promoting the ‘religious and moral welfare’ of his tenants.5Cox, Calke Abbey, 79, 86; Gent. Mag. (1844), xxi. 200; H. Crewe, A funeral sermon … January 14th, 1844, on the occasion of the death of Sir George Crewe (1844), 27.
A leading member of the local True Blue Club, his support for the reform bill, expressed at a county meeting, 22 Mar. 1831, helped to split the local Tory party and precluded his candidature in the 1831 general election.6HP Commons, 1820-1832; Crewe, Squire of Calke Abbey: extracts from the journals of Sir George Crewe, 1815-1834, ed. C. Kitching (1995), 28 Apr. 1831 (at 76). Thereafter, he viewed events with detachment, and correctly predicted that the selection of the ‘violent Ultra Tory’, Sir Roger Gresley, to contest South Derbyshire in 1832 would hand the Whigs both seats.7Crewe, Squire of Calke, 19 Dec. 1832 (at 83, 106).
Reluctant to stand as a candidate at the 1835 general election due to his poor health, he was prevailed upon at a Conservative meeting, 28 Nov. 1834, although he later had to deny rumours that he did not plan to go to the poll.8Crewe, Squire of Calke, 30 Nov. 1832 (at 134); Derby Mercury, 3, 10, 31 Dec. 1834. During the campaign Crewe emphasised his private and Christian character as a qualification for public service.9Derby Mercury, 17 Dec. 1834, 21 Jan. 1835. One elector, Walter Augustus Shirley (later Bishop of Sodor and Man) wrote to his mother, 19 Dec. 1834, that as ‘Christian character is paramount with me ever to party consideration, therefore I vote for Sir George Crewe; besides which, I think his views liberal and reasonable’, W. Shirley, Letters and memoir, ed. T. Hill (1850), 187. Mistakenly described by Dod as a ‘moderate Reformer’, Crewe supported the Tory Manners Sutton for the speakership and divided against Russell’s motion on the Irish church in 1835.10Dod’s parliamentary companion (1835), 104; Derby Mercury, 25 Feb. 1835, 18 Mar. 1835, 8 Apr. 1835. On other issues his faith appears to have heavily influenced his behaviour in the division lobbies, and he voted for the recommitment of the Lord’s day bill and presented an address to the king from the Derbyshire clergy on the same issue, 23 Mar. 1836.11Derby Mercury, 1 July 1835, 30 Mar. 1836.
Although he was returned unopposed at the 1837 election, some electors were discontented with his support for the London University Charter and his abstention on the Irish municipal corporations bill, 22 Feb. 1837, although Crewe explained in a public letter that he did so because he was unhappy with his negative vote of the previous session, but also thought it improper to go against the opinions of his constituents.12Derby Mercury, 1 Mar. 1837, 26 July 1836. He generally held aloof from the meetings of local Conservatives and despite his faith, he avoided Protestant Association meetings, objecting to the ‘violent abuse’ of Catholics.13Derby Mercury, 5, 19 June 1839.
Absent due to illness for much of the next three sessions, Crewe was present to vote with other Conservatives against Villiers’s 1840 anti-corn law motion.14House of Commons Divisions Lists, 1840 session, 26 May 1840. His evangelical beliefs were reflected in divisions in favour of the immediate cessation of slave apprenticeships in May 1838 and his continued support for a strict enforcement of the Sabbath.15House of Commons Divisions Lists, 1837-8 session, 22 & 28 May 1838, 20 June 1838. A longstanding opponent of the ‘inefficient, absurd, and cold-hearted’ poor law, he published an address in 1841 calling for petitions against the proposed renewal of the Act and for the working classes to make their views felt.16Derby Mercury, 11 Feb. 1835. Although he did not break his silence in Parliament on the issue, he did express his antipathy in divisions in Mar. 1841.17He voted for a two year rather than five year term for Poor Law Commissioners and against all Commission orders being ‘deemed a general rule’: House of Commons Divisions Lists, 1841 session, 22 & 26 Mar. 1841. The final act of Crewe’s parliamentary career was to divide in favour of Peel’s motion of no confidence in the government, 4 June 1841.18House of Commons Divisions Lists, 1841 session, 4 June 1841.
Plagued by ‘pain and infirmity’ and longing to return to private and estate life, he had announced that he would retire at the next election, 24 Apr. 1840.19Crewe, A funeral sermon, 28; Derby Mercury, 29 Apr. 1840, 9 June 1841. A trustee of Rugby School from 1838, Crewe continued to support local agricultural, religious and educational bodies, which he generally preferred to the strife of politics, although he did publish an anti-poor law pamphlet in 1843.20F. Temple, Rugby school register: from 1675 to 1867 (1867), p. iv; Derby Mercury, 8 Dec. 1841, 5 Oct. 1842; G. Crewe, A word for the poor, and against the present poor law, both as to its principle and practice (1843). He died from acute bronchitis after a short illness, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Sir John (1824-1886).21Crewe, A funeral sermon, 28-29; Cox, Calke Abbey, 90. The baronetcy became extinct with the death of Crewe’s eccentric and reclusive grandson, Sir Vauncey, in 1924, although Calke Abbey remained in family hands until it was given to the National Trust in 1985.22Cox, Calke Abbey, 96, 98, 101-11.