Sir Willoughby Aston, 2nd Baronet

Sir Willoughby Aston, 2nd Baronet JP DL (5 July 1640 – 14 December 1702) was an English baronet.

Early life Aston was born on 5 July 1640. He was the only surviving son of Sir Thomas Aston, 1st Baronet, who fought for the Royalist cause in the English Civil War, and, his second wife, Anne Willoughby (1614–1688). After his father's death, his mother married Hon. Anchitell Grey, MP for Derby and second son of Henry Grey, 1st Earl of Stamford, From his parents' marriage, he was brother to Magdalen Aston (who married Sir Robert Burdett, 3rd Baronet), and Mary Aston (who married Michael Biddulph of Polesworth).

His paternal grandparents were John Aston of Aston, Cheshire and Maud ( Needham) Aston (a daughter of Robert Needham Esq.).

Career Sir Willoughby came of age in 1661, and built a new house on the Aston estate. He inherited his mother's estates at Stanford in the Vale in Berkshire (through his maternal grandmother, Elizabeth ( Knollys) Willoughby) and Kingsbury in Warwickshire on her death in 1688.

Aston served as High Sheriff of Cheshire from 1680 to 1681 and, again, from 1690 to 1691. He was a Justice of the Peace for Cheshire and Warwickshire, and a Deputy Lieutenant for Cheshire from 1672 to 1682, when he was removed from the Lieutenancy because of his support for the Duke of Monmouth. He was later reinstated in , serving until his death in 1702.

Personal life In , Aston was married to Mary Offley (1650–1712), a daughter of John Offley, Esq. of Madeley Manor, Staffordshire. Through her brother, she was an aunt to John Offley Crewe, MP for Cheshire who inherited the family estate at Madeley in 1688 upon the death of his father (Mary's brother), and, in 1711, also inherited Crewe Hall and other estates from his great-uncle, Sir John Crewe of Utkinton. Together, they were the parents of twenty-one children, eight sons and nine daughters who survived to adulthood, including: Magdalen Aston (1672–1746), who married Thomas Norris of Speke, Lancashire, in 1695. Dorothy Aston (1681–1756), who died unmarried.

Descendants Through his eldest son Thomas, he was a grandfather of eight granddaughters, including Catherine Aston (wife of Hon. Rev. Henry Hervey, fourth son of the 1st Earl of Bristol) and Margery Aston (wife of Gilbert Walmisley), and one grandson, Sir Thomas Aston, 4th Baronet (–1744), MP for Liverpool and St Albans; he married Rebecca Shishe (a daughter of John Shishe of Greenwich, Kent) in 1736 but died without issue.

Through his second eldest surviving son Richard, he was a grandfather of Sir Willoughby Aston, 5th Baronet (–1772), who married Elizabeth Pye, a daughter of Henry Pye of Faringdon House in Berkshire (now Oxfordshire). Her brother was Admiral Sir Thomas Pye.