The great judge was born in the Bigg Market, Newcastle, and spent his youth at Cresswell, where his brother lived. He was also familiar with Newbiggin-by-the-Sea. Cresswell was very prominent on the Northern Circuit, specialising in shipping cases. He became Recorder of Hull and was concerned in the 'Barnewell and Cresswell' volumes of law decisions. After a spell in parliament as a supporter of Sir Robert Peel, he became judge of the Court of Common Pleas in 1842, and he was the first judge to preside over the newly-established Probate and Divorce Court in 1858.
Augustus Hare met Cresswell at Alnwick Castle on 4 October 1862 (Hare was staying at St Michael's vicarage). 'Cresswell was most amusing,' he writes, 'in describing how, when a lady was being conveyed in a sedan chair to a party at Northumberland House, the bottom fell out and, as she was unable to make her bearers hear, she was obliged to run as fast as she could all the way through the mire inside the shell of the chair.'
A descendant of the Cresswell family was Captain A.J. Baker-Cresswell (1901-1997), who commanded the destroyer H.M.S. Bulldog, on convoy in the North Atlantic during World War II. He was quick-witted enough to seize cipher paperwork and codes from the damaged U-110, as well as the first Enigma machine captured in the war, and the most important. King George VI told the officers that their initiative was 'the most important single event in the whole war at sea.'