Sir Cresswell Cresswell PC KC (20 August 1794 – 29 July 1863), born Cresswell Easterby, was an English lawyer, judge and Tory politician. As a judge in the newly created divorce court, Cresswell did much to start the emergence of modern family law by setting divorce on a secular footing, removed from the traditional domain of canon law.
Born at Bigg Market, Newcastle, Cresswell's father was Francis Easterby (died 1834), a merchant and sailor. His mother was Frances Dorothea née Cresswell (1768–1832), daughter of a distinguished northern family that could trace its ancestry back to the twelfth century and service in the Crusades. The family owned land in Northumberland and were scions of the Cresswells of Bibury, Sidbury and Sherston Pinkney, ancestors of Edward I. Francis adopted the name Cresswell in 1807 when his wife inherited much of the ancestral wealth.
His brother Baker Cresswell was the Tory MP for Northumberland between 1841 and 1857.
Cresswell was educated at Charterhouse School, where he was a contemporary of Connop Thirlwall, George Grote and Henry Havelock. He attended Trinity and then Emmanuel College, Cambridge where William Henry Maule was his tutor. Graduating BA in 1814, he received the lowest place in the honours list of the entire university. Nonetheless, he was awarded an MA in 1818 and was called to the bar by the Inner Temple in 1819.