High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The title Marquess of Ely, of the County of Wexford, was created in the Peerage of Ireland in 1800 for the 1st Earl of Ely of the third creation. Lord Ely had previously been created Baron Loftus, of Loftus Hall in the County of Wexford, in 1785, Viscount Loftus, of Ely, in 1789, and Earl of Ely, in the Kingdom of Ireland, in 1794, all in the Peerage of Ireland. He was subsequently created Baron Loftus, of Long Loftus in the County of York, in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, in 1801, by which title the Marquesses of Ely sat in the British House of Lords until the passage of the House of Lords Act 1999. The 1st Marquess was one of the few persons to rise to the rank of Marquess without having inherited any peerages. The 1st Marquess's father, John Tottenham, had been created an Irish Baronet, styled "of Tottenham Green in the County of Wexford", in 1780. He inherited the Baronetcy in 1786, after his elevation to the Peerage as 1st Baron Loftus, having changed his surname to Loftus in 1783 upon inheriting the estates of his uncle, the 1st Earl of Ely of the second creation.