One of the acts of the new Tory administration has been to gazette three new peerages, and one of these creations possesses considerable interest for this district, inasmuch as it is the revival of a very ancient local title connected with the Wear. I allude to the fact that Sir William George Hylton Jolliffe, M.P. for Petersfield, well known some years ago as the Conservative ‟whip”and who got a baronetcy some twenty years ago as the reward of his political services—has now been honoured with the title of Baron Hylton. The origin of the ancient family of Hylton, who held Hylton Castle and its extensive estates, near Sunderland, is lost in remote antiquity, but they are reported to have been in possession long before the Conquest. In the course of the more modern succession, the estates became considerably encumbered, and were so involved at the time when John Hylton, the last of the barons, died, in 1746, that they were afterwards divided and sold to clear off the accumulated debts of the last of the line. His nephew by one of his sisters, Sir Richard Musgrave, of Hayton Castle, Cumberland, to whom the baron willed the estates, thus came to a very ‟barren” inheritance—if I may indulge in this antiquated pun—and accordingly fell into poverty in his latter days, having assumed the name of Hylton without being able to secure any portion of the actual inheritance. The estates, which were very extensive, on both banks of the Wear, were divided, and purchased by various parties, the castle and land surrounding it being sold in 1758, to Mrs. Bowes, of Gibside, for £30,000. The last baron, I may add, was a captain in the Royal Lancers, and once M.P. for Carlisle. Sir Richard (Musgrave) Hylton left only a daughter, Eleanor Hylton, who was without means, but was adopted by some family, until, while travelling on the continent, she met and ultimately married William Jolliffe, Esq. (then M.P. for his family borough of Petersfield), the grandfather of the new Baron. Mr. Joliffe naturally took some interest in the ancestral history of his young bride, and discovered that she was entitled, through her mother, who was a Hedworth, to half the possessions of the Hedworth family of Chester Deanery. After a long course of litigation with the Milbanke family (the ancestors of Lady Byron), he succeeded in recovering his wife’s half of the property, and thenceforward took up his residence in the county of Durham. He lived at the Garden House, near Chester-le-Street, and among other enterprises, sank a colliery on his land at Waldridge Fell. The coals from this pit were brought down the Wear, in keels, to be shipped at Sunderland, and local records tell us that when the first lot came down, there were great rejoicings at Sunderland and Chester. His eldest son, Hylton Jolliffe, died without issue, but the second, the Rev. William Jolliffe, was father of the new Baron, who married one of the Pagets, and, I believe, has a pretty numerous family, nearly all of whom have ‟Hylton” incorporated in their names. The new peer has taken such pains to perpetuate this name, and shown such pride in the connection of the family with the ancient baronial line, that I should think he will be very much gratified by the revival of the old title in his own person. Hylton Castle, and the estate surrounding it, belong now to William Briggs, Esq., of Sunderland.