The Masham baronetcy, of High Lever in the County of Essex, had been created by James I in the Baronetage of England on 20 December 1621 for Samuel Masham.
[1] It was created for a second time in the Peerage of the United Kingdom in 1891, when the industrialist Samuel Lister was made Baron Masham, of Swinton in the County of York.
It was created for at third time in the Peerage of the United Kingdom in 1955 when the Conservative politician Philip Cunliffe-Lister, 1st Viscount Swinton, was made Baron Masham, of Ellington in the County of York.
Born Philip Lloyd Grame, he was the husband of Mary Constance Cunliffe-Lister, granddaughter of the first Baron of the 1891 creation, and had assumed the surname of Cunliffe-Lister in 1924 when his wife succeeded to the substantial Masham estates.
Susan Cunliffe-Lister, wife of the second Earl of Swinton, was created a life peer as Baroness Masham of Ilton in her own right in 1970.