Halsbury is a historic manor in the parish of Parkham, near Bideford, Devon, long the seat of the Giffard family and sold by them in the 18th.

He was descended from the family of Giffard of Brightley, Chittlehampton, a junior line of Gifford of Halsbury.

A younger son of the first of the Brightley family was Roger Giffard (d.1603) who purchased Tiverton Castle which he made his home.

The 2nd Earl styled himself "Lord Tiverton"[6] until his succession to the title in 1921, and as a major in the Royal Navy Air Service during World War I produced in September 1917 the first comprehensive plan for strategic bombing that became a major influence for plans and doctrine used by British and American air forces in World War II.

Halsbury's grandson, the third Earl (who succeeded his father), was a scientist and the first Chancellor of Brunel University, the coat of arms of which to this day includes an element, an ermine lozenge, alluding to the role of the Earl in its founding as a university.