Sir Humphrey de Trafford, 2nd Baronet

Born at Croston Hall near Chorley, Lancashire on 1 May 1808, he was the fourth child and the eldest son of Sir Thomas de Trafford.

[3] In 1861 he served as High Sheriff of Lancashire In 1881, he bought Hothorpe Hall in Northamptonshire (though near Theddingworth, Leicestershire), and presented it to his son Charles.

In 1884, the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society, at its meeting on Friday 11 January, recorded the receipt from Sir Humphrey of the head of a stone hammer found in 1860 in a drain ditch at Blackshaw Farm near Alderley Edge.

[4] In 1882, a meeting held at the Didsbury home of engineer Daniel Adamson resulted in the creation of the Manchester Ship Canal committee.

[5] He objected, among other grounds, that it would bring polluted water close to his residence, interfere with his drainage, and render Trafford Hall uninhabitable, forcing him to "give up his home and leave the place".