Shireburn baronets

The Shireburn or Sherburne Baronetcy, of Stonyhurst in the County of Lancaster, was a title in the Baronetage of England. It was created on 4 February 1686 for Nicholas Shireburn. His only son predeceased him and the title became extinct on Shireburn's death in 1717. The substantial family estates devolved on his only surviving daughter, Maria Winifred Francisca Shireburn, wife of Thomas Howard, 8th Duke of Norfolk. The Duchess of Norfolk died childless in 1754 when the Shireburn estates passed to the children of her aunt Elizabeth Shireburn, wife of Thomas Weld, of Lulworth. In 1794 the Welds donated the Stonyhurst estate to the English Jesuits whose school on the continent was in danger due to the French Revolutionary Wars, and it became the seat of a Catholic school, Stonyhurst College.