My Downton Ancestors

Parish registers were introduced on 5th September 1538 but not all parishes kept registers from that date. All parishes kept registers from 1598 when Bishops Transcripts were introduced. Over the years many registers have been lost, damaged or destroyed. Even where registers have survived they often have gaps within them e.g. during the reign of Queen Mary; during the Civil War and during the Commonwealth. In Dorset we do not have the benefit of Bishops Transcripts to assist us fill in any gaps in the registers prior to 1731 as the transcripts were destroyed by a terrible fire in Blandford on 4th June.

The furthest back that I have been able to trace my Downton ancestors is the baptism of John, son of John and Mary Downton, in West Knighton on 22nd April 1718. It is noted in the register that the family lived in Whitcombe. Whitcombe is 2 miles south-east of Dorchester and 4 ½ miles south-west of Puddletown. Whitcombe parish records prior to 1780 were destroyed in a fire and not all Bishops Transcripts for the parish prior to 1780 have survived. It was fortunate that John was baptised in West Knighton! Post fire the first marriage recorded in Whitcombe was of Catherine Downton to Thomas Morris on 6th July 1780 (followed by the marriages of James Downton on 29th Jun 1783 and Thomas Downton on 6th July 1784). Catherine was buried in West Knighton six years later.

Although I have been unable to find a marriage for John and Mary in parish registers there is evidence of Downtons/Dountons in Puddletown, Dorchester and the wider area from the middle of the 16th century and it is likely that John was local to the area. In Puddletown the parish register records Downton baptisms, marriages and burials from 1541 up until the Civil War when there is a hiatus in the records. The will of John Dounton of Puddletown was dated during the Civil War. Downtons do not appear in the register after records resume which suggests that they were no longer resident in the parish.

Johane Downton married in Holy Trinity, Dorchester on 19th May 1570 and the will of William Downton of Fordington, Dorchester was proven on 27th July 1574. Just over 100 years later, on 31st August 1681, one John Downton was a signatory to the Address to King Charles II made by the inhabitants of Dorchester. This is likely the same John Downton who was buried at All Saints, Dorchester on 26th February 1692.

The Great Fire of Dorchester, which began in the afternoon of 25th March 1725, destroyed or damaged 57 houses and another 64 people lost goods and household items. There were no Downtons named among those whose property was destroyed but an Edward Downton had losses in goods and household stuff amounting to £20 13s 11d. A short while after the fire Edward was signatory to a letter to the Lord Chancellor requesting that Dorchester be allowed to ask to receive charitable benevolence from outside of the county. Edward Downton was buried 2nd December 1752 at St Peter’s Church, Dorchester. A John Downton had been buried at the same church a few years earlier on 11th March 1749. It is tempting to speculate that this could be the father of John born in 1718.

John, the son of John and Mary, married Susanna sometime before 1755. No marriage record has been found for them. They had a least 4 children – John, baptised in West Stafford 23rd March 1755; Joseph, baptised in Warmwell 16th October 1761; Edward, baptised in Warmwell 24th June 1764 and Sarah, baptised in Warmwell 19th January 1768. Given that the fragmentary nature of the parish records it is possible that there were other children for whom no record has survived. John was a shepherd. His name appears on a list, compiled on 6th August 1757, of men between the age of 18 and 50 in the Tithing of Ilsington who were liable to be chosen for the militia. John and Susanna both lived to a ripe old age. Susanna was buried in Moreton on 10th April 1806 aged 84 and John was buried at St Mary’s, Winterborne Zelston on 31st July 1808 aged 90.

John and Susanna’s son John, my 4th great grandfather, was also a shepherd. He married Elizabeth, the daughter of the Stourpaine blacksmith Thomas Spinney, in Anderson on 16th January 1783. At the time of their marriage John was resident in Winterborne Kingston and Elizabeth in Anderson. The witnesses to the marriage were Thomas Standfield and Charles Everet. Thomas and Charles signed their name but John and Elizabeth were illiterate and only made their mark.

Thomas, Charles, John and Elizabeth were Wesleyan Methodists. Thomas Standfield the elder, carpenter, and Thomas Standfield the younger were from Tolpuddle and were the grandfather and uncle respectively of the martyr of the same name. It is not known which of the two were the witness but the younger was closest in age to John and Elizabeth. Charles Everet was born in Durweston, just across the river from Stourpaine, in 1759. He married Sturminster Marshall born Fanny Cutler in Canford Magna on 20th September 1784. Fanny had been living in Ensbury, Kinson at the time of her marriage.

Small groups of Methodists had been meeting in villages in the area since at least the beginning of the last quarter of the 18th century. Before 1818 there was no legal obligation to secure a license and as a result there is no record of many them. It is known that Methodists were meeting in Hampreston (Longham) and Horton by 1766. The dwelling house of William Lodge in Lytchett Matravers was registered as a place of worship in 1779. Methodists were meeting in Morden by 1789 and the house of John Butler was registered there in 1798. Further properties were registered as places of worship in East Morden (1798), West Morden (1799) and Charlton Marshall (1799)

Elizabeth’s cousin Thomas Spinney, a blacksmith in Compton Abbas, was active in a group of dissenters meeting in a building in Fontmell Magna registered in 1797 and in a building in West Orchard registered in 1798. The Quarter Session Order Book for Dorset for the 1811 Michaelmas Session states:

At this Court was brought a Certificate that a Building and premises now Occupied by Thomas Spinney in the Parish of Compton Abbas in the County of Dorset is set apart for the Public Worship of Almighty God by a Congregation of Dissenting Protestants called Methodists and it was desired that this Court would enter and file the same of Record. This Court doth therefore record the same and the same is entered and recorded accordingly.

John and Elizabeth had eight children:

I have been unable to find a baptismal record for my great great great grandmother Fanny but there was a baptism in Wimborne on 7th December 1797 of a Francis, son of John Downton. The year is correct given Fanny’s age at death and Ministers weren’t infallible so this could be her. I have found no further records for a man called Francis Downton.

As shepherds both John and his father would have attended Woodbury Hill Fair near Bere Regis each year. The fair was held for five days from 18th to 22nd September each year. The 21st was Sheep Fair Day when livestock were traded. Dorset Horn, a docile breed with both rams and ewes having dramatic looking horns, were the local sheep. Dorsets had been bred for folding on turnips and arable crops. The grazing by the sheep lowered disease levels in the crop, encouraged tillering and cycled nutrients via their manure. Hurdles were used to make temporary enclosures (folds) to restrict the area grazed by the sheep and the shepherd moved the hurdles every day to set up the next days grazing. This was a very labour-intensive system with hundreds of hurdles having to be moved daily.

The main industry in Dorset was buttony which was at its peak between the 1680’s and 1850. The earliest buttons, High Tops and Knobs, were made from a disc of horn from Dorset Horn sheep covered with linen and embroidered. Later buttons were made on metal rings which were made by children. The industry was begun by the Case family in Shaftesbury in the 17th century. By the beginning of the 18th century the family had a depot in Bere Regis and in 1744 they opened a major depot in Lytchett Minster. Thousands of woman and children outworkers were engaged to make the buttons. They were paid according to the quality and quantity of buttons produced. A skilled buttoner could earn more making buttons than they could labouring in the fields. It is probable that the Downton women and children were buttoners. Buttony would have provided Edward’s widow, Dinah, with a means of supporting herself and her family after his death in 1812.

As Methodists the Downtons would have attended the opening of the nearby Tolpuddle Chapel on Tuesday 20th October 1818. A noisy rabble gathered outside the chapel and tried to disrupt the service. The mob then attacked the worshippers when they tried to leave.

RIOTING AND PERSECUTION. - Tuesday a Methodist chapel was opened in the village of Tolpuddle, Dorset, and  a number of persons accompanied the ministers from Weymouth on the occasion. After evening service, when the ministers and their friends were preparing to return, a mob of about 100 persons assembled, and behaved in a most disorderly manner. A lady belonging to the minister's party, before she could get into her carriage, was pushed down a bank into the road; the horses being frightened by the tumult and noise, the driver was, for a considerable time, unable to proceed; and the ladies were under the necessity of walking a great distance, exposed to the most brutal insults. The drivers, horses, and carriages, were pelted with stones, mud, &c.; the windows of the chaise broken, and even the side of the chaise was pierced by a stone. One lady, who rode by the driver, received a severe blow on her head; and at Piddleton, two miles from Tolpuddle, the driver received a blow in his neck, which, had it not been for a large neckcloth, would probably have proved fatal.-
Bath Chronicle

Fanny Downton married Martin Luther in Kinson on 11th August 1824 and Mary married the thatcher Thomas Hicks in Lytchett Matravers on 6th February 1827. The Hicks and Luther families were already known to each other. Thomas’ uncle, Robert, having married Joanna Luther in 1785.

Fanny and Martin had five daughters:

Mary 1825 - 1908
Elizabeth 1827 - 1911
Ann 1830 - 1883
Paulina 1832 - 1881
Fanny 1835 - 1899

Young Fanny, my great great grandmother, was baptised on the same day that her mother was buried. Martin Luther never re-married. Mary and Thomas Hicks, who had no children of their own, helped Martin to care for his daughters. Elizabeth [Spinney] Downton died in 1836 and was buried in Lytchett Matravers on 16th September. The 1841 the elderly John Downton was living with the Hicks’ and grand-daughter Ann Luther in Hill Butts, Wimborne. Mary Luther, was employed as a female servant in the home of Eleanor Braffett, another Wesleyan Methodist, in West Borough, Wimborne. The other three Luther girls were living with their father. Sometime after 1841 John Downton moved to Moortown, Ringwood to stay with his son Joseph. He died there on 21st June 1849 and was buried in Lytchett Matravers on 24th. John’s age was recorded as 98 but he was actually about 93 years old when he died. Mary Hicks died and was buried in Kinson on 5th June 1866.