John Crewe, 2nd Baron Crewe

John Crewe, 2nd Baron Crewe (bap. 1772 – 4 December 1835) was an English soldier and a peer. He formed part of the first British embassy to China, and rose to the rank of General. He became estranged from the majority of his family and spent much of his life in self-imposed exile on the Continent. He is perhaps best known for a painting of him as a child by Sir Joshua Reynolds.

Crewe was the son of John Crewe (1742–1829) of Crewe Hall, a wealthy Whig politician who was created the first Baron Crewe in 1806. His mother, Frances Anne Crewe, the daughter of Fulke Greville, was a political hostess known for her great beauty. His younger sister, Elizabeth Emma (1780–1850), married Foster Cunliffe-Offley; two other siblings, Richard and Frances, did not survive infancy.

As a child in around 1775, he was painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds in a pose and costume which mimic the well-known portrait of Henry VIII by Hans Holbein the Younger. The portrait is considered among the artist's finest portrayals of children, and has been described as "one of Reynolds' freshest attempts at comedy painting".Horace Walpole commented: "Is not there humour and satire in Sir Joshua's reducing Holbein's swaggering and colossal haughtiness of Henry VIII to the boyish jollity of Master Crewe?"

Frances Burney described him in the early 1790s as "a silent and reserved, but, I think, sensible young man". Local historian Ray Gladden describes him at the time of his entrance into the army as "high spirited", accruing gambling debts that his father had to pay off by selling land. One of his daughters later remembered that he claimed his total debts were never above £80,000, then a huge sum.

Crewe entered the army in the 1790s. In 1793, when he held the rank of a lieutenant, he was a member of the Macartney Embassy to China, led by Lord Macartney, who was his mother's cousin. Crewe rose to the rank of Major-General in 1808, Lieutenant-General in 1813 and full General in 1830, before retiring in 1831. He lost the sight in one eye during active service.

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