Nathaniel Crew, 3rd Baron Crew

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Nathanial Crew, 3rd Baron Crew (January 31, 1633–1721) was Bishop of Oxford from 1671 to 1674, then Bishop of Durham from 1674 to 1721. As such he was one of the longest serving Bishops of the Church of England.

Nathaniel was the son of John Crew, 1st Baron Crew and a grandson of Sir Thomas Crew, Speaker of the House of Commons. He was educated at Lincoln College, Oxford and appointed Rector of the college in 1668. He became dean and precentor of Chichester in 1669, Clerk of the Closet to Charles II shortly afterwards, Bishop of Oxford in 1671 and Bishop of Durham in 1674. He owed his rapid promotions to James, then Duke of York, whose favour he had gained by secretly encouraging the duke's interest in the Roman Catholic Church.

After the accession of James II, Crew also received the deanery of the Chapel Royal. He was part of the ecclesiastical commission of 1686, which suspended Henry Compton, Bishop of London (for refusing to suspend John Sharp, then rector of St Giles's-in-the-Fields, whose anti-papal writings had rendered him obnoxious to the king) and Crew shared the administration of the see of London with Thomas Sprat, Bishop of Rochester. On the decline of King James's power, Crew dissociated himself from the court, and made a bid for the favour of William III's new government by voting for the motion that James had abdicated. He was excepted from the general pardon of 1690, but afterwards was allowed to retain his see. He left large estates to be devoted to charitable ends, and his benefaction to Lincoln College and to Oxford University is commemorated in the annual Crewian oration. In 1697 Crew had succeeded his brother Thomas as 3rd Baron Crew, but the barony became extinct upon his death.

His tenure also saw the first two new parishes to be erected in England since the Reformation. These were at Stockton-on-Tees in 1712 and Sunderland. The Church of the Holy Trinity in Sunderland, now redundant, was the base for responsible local government in the growing port town for the first time since the Borough of Sunderland, created by the Bishops of Durham, was crushed by Oliver Cromwell in the English Civil War.

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This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

Religious Posts
Preceded by Walter Blandford	Bishop of Oxford 1671–1674	Succeeded by Henry Compton
Preceded by John Cosin	Bishop of Durham 1674–1721	Succeeded by William Talbot
Honorary Titles
Preceded by The Viscount Fauconberg	Lord Lieutenant of Durham 1687–1689	Succeeded by The Earl of Scarbrough
Preceded by The Earl of Scarbrough	Lord Lieutenant of Durham 1712–1715	Succeeded by The Earl of Scarbrough
Peerage of England
Preceded by Thomas Crew	Baron Crew 1697–1721	Succeeded by Extinct