High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Marquess of Ely, of the County of Wexford, is a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created in 1800 for Charles Loftus, 1st Earl of Ely. He was born Charles Tottenham, the son of John Tottenham, who had been created a Baronet, of Tottenham Green in the County of Wexford, in the Baronetage of Ireland in 1780, by the Honourable Elizabeth, daughter of Nicholas Loftus, 1st Viscount Loftus, and sister and heiress of Henry Loftus, 1st Earl of Ely (see Earl of Ely for earlier history of the Loftus family). In 1783 he succeeded to the Loftus estates on the death of his maternal uncle the Earl of Ely and assumed the same year by Royal license the surname of Loftus in lieu of his patronymic. In 1785 he was raised to the Peerage of Ireland as Baron Loftus, of Loftus Hall in the County of Wexford. He was further honoured when he was made Viscount Loftus, of Ely, in 1789, Earl of Ely, in the Kingdom of Ireland, in 1794, and Marquess of Ely, of the County of Wexford, in 1800, all in the Peerage of Ireland, becoming one of the few persons to rise to the rank of Marquess without having inherited any peerages. In 1801 he was created Baron Loftus, of Long Loftus in the County of York, in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, by which title the Marquesses of Ely sat in the House of Lords until the passage of the House of Lords Act 1999. Lord Ely also succeeded his father as second Baronet in 1786.