George Carew, Baron Carew of Clopton and Earl of Totnes, was born in 1555. He was the son of George Carew, Dean of Windsor, by his wife Anne, daughter of Sir Nicholas Harvey. In 1564 he was sent to the University of Oxford, which he left in 1573, and in the following year went to Ireland and entered the service of his cousin Sir Peter Carew, who was then engaged in prosecuting his claims to his Irish property. Carew held various posts in that country, and remained there, save for visits to England and the Low Countries, until 1592, when he entered upon his duties as Lieutenant-General of the Ordnance, to which office he had been appointed in 1591. He took part in the expeditions of Essex to Cadiz in 1596, and to the Azores in 1597, and in 1599 returned to Ireland as Lord President of Munster, a post he held until 1603. In 1605 he was made Vice-Chamberlain to Queen Anne, and in the same year was created Baron Carew. Three years later he was made Master of the Ordnance, and in 1611 he again went to Ireland as 'Sole Commissioner for the reformation of the army and improvement of his majesties revenew.' On the 5th of February 1626, Carew, who had been knighted in 1585, was created Earl of Totnes, and later in the year received the appointment of 'Treasurer and receaver-general to queene Henriette Marie.'

He died at London on the 27th of March 1629, and was buried in the Church of Stratford-on-Avon, where a monument was erected to his memory by his widow, a daughter of William Clopton, of Clopton House, near Stratford-on-Avon. He left no children by her.

Carew, who was much attached to antiquarian pursuits, maintained a large correspondence with Camden, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Robert Cotton, and Sir Thomas Bodley, and many of his letters have been printed by the Camden Society. He bequeathed his books and manuscripts, of which he had acquired a considerable number, to Sir Thomas Stafford, who was said to be his illegitimate son. They afterwards became the property of Archbishop Laud, who placed forty-two of the volumes of manuscripts, which principally relate to Irish history in the time of Queen Elizabeth, in the Archiepiscopal Library at Lambeth, and four in the Bodleian Library. Others are preserved in the Department of M., British Museum, the State Paper Office, and at Hatfield.