[Illustration] Swinburne in this county gave name to this ancient
family, the first recorded ancestor being John, father of Sir
William de Swinburne, living in 1278, and Alan Swinburne, Rector of
Whitfield, who purchased Capheaton from Sir Thomas Fenwick, Knt., in
1274.
Chollerton in Northumberland was also an ancient seat of the
Swinburnes; it was held under the great Umfrevile family by this
same Sir William de Swinburne, the arms being evidently founded upon
the coat of the Umfreviles. The date of the baronetcy points to the
loyalty of the family during the civil wars of the seventeenth
century.
See the early part of the pedigree in Surtees's Durham, ii. 872;
Hodgson's History of Northumberland, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 231; and
Wotton's Baronetage, iii. 167.
ARMS.--_Per fess gules and argent, three cinquefoils
counterchanged_, borne by Monsieur William Swynburne in the reign of
Richard II. (Roll of the date.)
Present Representative, Sir John Swinburne, 7th Baronet.