Sir Cresswell Cresswell, PC (20 August 1794 – 29 July 1863), born Cresswell Easterby, was an English lawyer, judge and Tory politician. As a judge in the newly created divorce court, Cresswell did much to start the emergence of modern family law by setting divorce on a secular footing, removed from the traditional domain of canon law. Family Born at Bigg Market, Newcastle, Cresswell's father was Francis Easterby (died 1834), a merchant and sailor. His mother was Frances Dorothea née Cresswell (1768–1832), daughter of a distinguished northern family that could trace its ancestry back to the twelfth century and service in the Crusades. The family owned land in Northumberland and were scions of the Cresswells of Bibury, Sidbury and Sherston Pinkney, ancestors of Edward I. Francis adopted the name Cresswell in 1807 when his wife inherited much of the ancestral wealth. His brother Addison was the Tory MP for North Northumberland between 1841 and 1857. Education Cresswell was educated at Charterhouse School, where he was a contemporary of Connop Thirlwall, George Grote and Henry Havelock. He attended Trinity and then Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where William Henry Maule was his tutor. Graduating BA in 1814, he received the lowest place in the honours list of the entire university. Nonetheless, he was awarded an MA in 1818 and was called to the bar by the Inner Temple in 1819. Early career Cresswell began his practice on the northern circuit and fell under the guidance and mentorship of Henry Brougham. Cresswell found his familiarity with his father's nautical career an advantage in the maritime city of Liverpool and he soon established a reputation in commercial and shipping cases. From 1822 to 1830 he was co-author, with Richard Barnewall, of a well-received series of law reports. From the 1820s, Brougham's and James Scarlett's energies were directed elsewhere and Cresswell became a leader of the northern circuit, being made recorder of Hull in 1830. In 1834 he was made KC and the same year became Attorney General for the County Palatine of Durham. Cresswell had gained a reputation as a "violent Tory" but was elected as Conservative Party Member of Parliament for Liverpool in the 1837 United Kingdom general election and again in 1841 when he defeated William Ewart. Cresswell was knighted in 1842. A dedicated party-man who loyally followed Sir Robert Peel, Cresswell made little contribution to parliamentary debate. He resigned his parliamentary seat