FERRERS, the name of a great Norman-English feudal house, derived from Ferrieres-St.-Hilaire, to the south of Bernay, in Normandy. Its ancestor Walkelin was slain in a feud during the Conqueror's minority, leaving a son Henry, who took part in the Conquest and held a great fief in the midlands. He estab lished his chief seat at Tutbury Castle, Staffordshire, on the Derbyshire border, and founded there a Cluniac priory. His eldest son succeeded to Ferrieres, and, according to Stapleton, he was ancestor of the Oakham house of Ferrers, whose memory is preserved by the horseshoes hanging in the hall of their castle. Robert, a younger son of Henry, inherited his vast English fief, and, for his services at the battle of the Standard (1138), was created earl of Derby by Stephen. He appears to have died the next year.
The earls seem to have been styled indifferently earls of Derby or Nottingham (both counties then forming one shrievalty) or of Tutbury, or simply (de) Ferrers.
William, the 3rd earl, joined in the great revolt of 1173, when he fortified his castles of Tutbury and Duffield and plundered Nottingham, which was held for the king. On his subsequent sub mission his castles were razed. He died at the siege of Acre, I190. His son William, the 4th earl, attacked Nottingham on Richard's behalf in 1194. He was confirmed by king John in the earldom of Derby, 1199. With his brother-in-law the earl of Chester, and with William Marshal, earl of Pembroke, whose daughter married his son, he acted in securing the succession of the young Henry, joining in the siege of Mountsorrel and the battle of Lincoln. In 1227 he was one of the earls who rose against Henry III. on be half of his brother Richard and made him restore the forest charters, and in 1237 he was one of the three counsellors forced on the king by the barons. He died in 1247.
Robert, 6th and last earl, his grandson, succeeded as a minor in 1254. He was one of the five earls summoned to Simon de Montfort's parliament, though, on taking the earl of Gloucester's part, he was arrested by Simon. On the king's triumph, he was compelled to forfeit his castles and seven years' revenues. In 1266 he revolted on his own estates in Derbyshire, but was de feated at Chesterfield by Henry "of Almain," deprived of his earldom and lands and imprisoned. In 1269, he agreed to pay I50,000 for restoration, and to pledge all his lands save Chartley and Holbrook for its payment. As he was not able to find the money, the lands passed to the king's son, Edmund.
The earl's son John succeeded to Chartley, a Staffordshire estate long famous for the wild cattle in its chase, and was summoned as a baron in 1299, though he had joined the baronial opposition in 1297. On the death, in 1450, of the last Ferrers lord of Chart ley, the barony passed with his daughter to the Devereux family and then to the Shirleys, one of whom was created Earl Ferrers in 1711. The barony has been in abeyance since The line of Ferrers of Groby was founded by William, younger brother of the last earl, who inherited from his mother Margaret de Quinci her estate of Groby in Leicestershire, and some Ferrers manors from his father. On the death of William, Lord Ferrers of Groby, in 1445, the barony passed with his granddaughter to the Grey family and was forfeited with the dukedom of Suffolk in 1554. A younger son of William, the last lord, married the heiress of Tamworth Castle, and his line was seated at Tamworth till 168o, when an heiress carried it to a son of the first Earl Ferrers. From Sir Henry, a younger son of the first Ferrers of Tamworth, descended Ferrers of Baddesley Clinton, seated there in the male line till towards the end of the 19th century. The line of Ferrers of Wemme was founded by a younger son of Lord Ferrers of Chartley, who married the heiress of Wemme, Co. Salop, and was summoned as a baron in her right ; but it ended with their son.
Higham Ferrers, Northants, and Woodham Ferrers, Essex, take their names from this family. It has been alleged that they bore horseshoes for their arms in allusion to Ferrieres (i.e., iron-works) ; but when and why they were added to their coat is, a moot point.
See Dugdale's Baronage; J. R. Planche's The Conqueror and his Companions; G. E. C(okayne)'s Complete Peerage; Chronicles and Memorials (Rolls Series) ; T. Stapleton's Rotuli Scaccarii Normannie; H. Norris, Baddesley Clinton, with account of the family of Ferrers