Sherrington Parish Registers - DOWNING (DOWNYNG), 16th century

[Robert Stedall]

Part 2

Emmanuel Downing born on 12 August 1588 at Edwardstone, near Ipswich, was an exceptional personality. He graduated from Cambridge University, qualified as a barrister at the Inner Temple in London and became a non-conformist preacher. He married twice, firstly in 1614 to Anne, daughter of Sir James Ware, the Secretary for Ireland based in Dublin, and secondly to Lucy, the sister of John Winthrop, the founder of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and its first Governor. There is a biography of Emmanuel written by Frederick Johnson Simmons in 1958, based on his correspondence and that of his second wife, Lucy. He moved with his first wife to live in Dublin but, following her death in 1620, he came home temporarily. After remarrying Lucy in 1622, he returned with her to Ireland until 1625. In 1629, he was invited by his brother-in-law to join the Massachusetts Bay Colony, but deferred travelling to America until the education of his younger children was completed. Yet some of his elder children joined John Winthrop in America. It was not until October 1638 that Emmanuel and Lucy set out with the remainder of their voluminous family. He became a key member of the colony, advocating slavery as a means of resolving the shortage of labour, and suggesting that native Indians should be traded for black African slaves. He was one of the founders of Harvard University, and George Downing, his eldest son by Lucy, was the second student to graduate from there. In 1652, Emmanuel and Lucy returned with some of their family to England, where he was appointed Clerk to the Council of State of Scotland, but died in Edinburgh on 26 September 1660.

George Downing also returned to England, where he became a strong supporter of the Commonwealth, preaching to Cromwell’s troops during the Civil War and serving as a diplomat at The Hague. Yet, following Cromwell’s death, he became a moving force in seeking the restoration of the monarchy, and was well rewarded by Charles II, becoming a baronet on 1 July 1663 and Secretary to the Treasury. He soon became extreme wealthy, building Downing Street in London, and amassing the fortune, which ultimately founded Downing College, Cambridge.

The conflicting family trees
Although the family trees provided by the Heralds in their Visitations of Norfolk and Suffolk must have been available well before this, the record of Downing of Gamlingay (the country estate of Sir George Downing) does not appear to have been published in printed form until 1900, when it formed part of a collection of Suffolk Manorial Families edited by Joseph James Muskett of New England. The resultant family tree demonstrates that George Downing of Beccles, who died in 1561 could not have been born much after 1530. It follows that he could not have been descended from Geoffrey Downing, who was born in 1524, notwithstanding numerous records, which provide links at various levels to amalgamate the two families. As this family record is based on the Heralds’ visitations and the various wills already mentioned, it can be assumed with some assurance that it is accurate. Muskett makes the following note on the similarity of the armorial bearings and the complexity of linking the two groups:

Armorial seals of Emmanuel Downing, his Wife, Lucy, and their son, Sir George Downing establish the fact that they used the arms attributed to Godfrey [presumably Geoffrey]Downing by Le Neve.
The arms of Downing of Norfolk, as given in the visitation of that county ... were used by the two Calibut Downings, father and son in 1613. The precise relationshio between the Norfolk and Suffolk Downings, however, has not yet been ascertained, and has been the subject of much misconception and misstatement.
 
There were several early genealogical records, but errors seem to have crept in, initially as a result of a biography of the Rev. Calybute Downing, included in Athenae Oxoniensis Vol. III, pp. 105-108 written by Anthony à Wood in 1649. This avers, incorrectly, that he was the father of Sir George Downing, the first baronet. It would seem that John Burke, in his Extinct Baronetage published in 1838, followed Wood in making the Rev. Calybute the father of Sir George. As he probably knew that Calybute had a son, Henry, he included him as a brother of Sir George. As explained above, this Henry seems to have changed his name to Brett. Burke then went further and claimed that Colonel Adam Downing of Bellaghy, the acknowledged ancestor of the Irish Downing family, was a son of this Henry Downing (or Brett). We have established no logical explanation for Burke to make this unlikely connection, but it has confused generations of later genealogists.


End of Part 2

[Robert Stedall]

Part 3

In 1893, Alexander George Fullerton a great-great-grandson of Adam (his father had changed his name from Downing to Fullerton), produced a ‘Memoir’ of his family with coats of arms to demonstrate his descent from Geoffrey Downing and Elizabeth Wingfield. He needed to look no further than Burke to be able to show this connection and he produced two versions of his family tree, the first of which follows Burke. He included a short biography of each of the family members, and he fleshed out Henry Downing as follows:

We now revert to HENRY JOHN DOWNING Esq 2nd Son of the Reverend Calybute Downing and only brother of Sir George the lst Baronet. He was an Officer in the Guards of Charles 2nd, a body of Troops of about 4000 men, horse and foot, commanded by the Duke of Albermarle, "consisting of Gentlemen of quality and Veteran soldiers excellently well clad and well mounted and ordered”, as Evelyn remarks, who saw them reviewed July 4 1663. He married Jane, daughter of [BLANK] and died circa 1698 leaving two sons, Adam and George, the latter had a son Adam who died S.P.
While it is possible that Henry, the son of Rev. Calybute Downing, was an officer of the guard, he may have changed his name to Brett and we have no evidence that he married and had children or travelled to Ireland. Alexander George goes further than Burke, he claims that Henry had two sons, Adam (the Colonel) and George, who had a son, Adam.

Sometime before the production of the second version of his family tree in 1893, Alexander George must have seen the will of Nicholas Downing of Drumard near Bellaghy dated 1698, in which Nicholas makes bequests to his nephew Adam, among several other nephews and nieces. We know that Alexander George became aware of it, because, in the second version of his Memoir, Nicholas is positioned as Adam’s uncle.

Although Nicholas does not provide a name for Adam’s father in his will, he mentions a brother William. Yet there is no Nicholas or William included among the children of the Rev. Calybute Downing in English parish records. Nicholas’s will refers to Adam’s mother, ‘Jane’, and there is an implication that Adam is a member of a well-established Irish family. It mentions Adam’s siblings, John, George, and Samuel, and William’s daughter, Sarah. Other cousins are Tobias Mullhollen, and Daniel, Abraham and Bernard Downing. There is no record, as claimed in the first version of Alexander George’s family tree, of George marrying and having a son Adam. Among his bequests, Nicholas provides the leases of the township of Drumard to Adam ‘of Rocktown’, and of Moyagall to Adam’s cousin, Daniel. Moyagall, Drumard and Rocktown are adjacent townships on the Vintners’ estate near Bellaghy.

End of part 3

[Robert Stedall]

Part 4

At some point before 1893, Alexander George and his genealogist produced a second version of their Memoir. This claims that Adam is a descendant of Lieutenant John Downing, who fought at the battle of Kinsale. They also claim that it was this John, who was the second son of Arthur of Lexham. They show that John married a ‘Margaret’ with a son, George, who assisted the head tenant of the Fishmongers’ proportion at Ballykelly. George, in turn, had two sons, Nicholas (from the will) and George, the Comptroller of Customs for Londonderry, who, so they claim, married Jane, daughter of ‘Hugh Montgomery of Ballygowan’, becoming the parents of Adam Downing.

As Alexander George Fullerton never lived in Ireland, where he might have been able to research these new connections, his conclusions may have seemed a bit controversial. Yet his genealogist will have had access to the Dublin Public Records Office, which was destroyed in the troubles in 1922. The second version of the Memoir still assumes that Sir George Downing is the son of the Rev. Calybute, and hence a descendant of the Norfolk family, and Calybute’s son Henry remains in the tree but without issue.

In 1901, yet another family record was produced by WC Downing  and R Wilberforce in Pennsylvania. This was well received and there is a copy in the Library of Congress at Washington, DC. Closer inspection shows that it is full of flaws and it conflicts with the Downing of Gamlingay tree mentioned earlier. They pick up on Burke’s assertion that Adam was the son of Henry Downing, and provide Henry with a brother, Nicholas, (but not William), showing that they had seen Nicholas’s will. In an apparent effort to overcome the difficulty that Calybute did not have sons, Nicholas or William, they make them the sons of Emmanuel of the Suffolk family, who is included as a brother of the Rev. Calybute Downing. Yet Emmanuel and Lucy Winthrop in their extensive correspondence do not mention sons Henry, Nicholas or William, and we know that Emmanuel was the son of George, the Schoolmaster of Ipswich. It is also apparent that they had seen the first version of Alexander George’s Memoir, as they copy its description of Henry as an officer of the guard of Charles II almost word for word. They then make an addition of their own. They identify Adam’s mother Jane as ‘Jane Clotworthy’. After extensive research, it can be shown that there was no suitable Jane among the members of the Clotworthy of Massereene family. She seems to be a spurious person named Jane, to fit with Nicholas’s will, and Clotworthy, because Adam had a grandson, Alexander Clotworthy Downing, whose name needed explanation. (It has now been found that he was named after his godfather, Clotworthy Skeffington.)

Downing and Wilberforce present Adam as a hero of the siege of Londonderry, being granted land at Bellaghy by a grateful William III for his conspicuous gallantry. Contemporary histories confirm that Adam was present at the siege, but there is no mention of any great heroism on his part, and no record that he was at the Battle of the Boyne. Furthermore, the land at Bellaghy was a leasehold from the Vintners’ Company and was not within the giving of a grateful King. Nevertheless, the Downing and Wilberforce record has confused those who have seen it, including myself. (Please see an assessment of the part played by Adam Downing at the siege of Londonderry in Appendix 1.)

Dorcas Blois
It has often been recorded that Dorcas Blois married George Downing, the schoolmaster at Ipswich, rather than Miss Bellamy, as recorded in the Visitation family tree. There was a Dorcas Blois, baptised on 2 September 1592 at St. Nicholas Ipswich, who married a George Downing. This is confirmed in Blois family trees. Unfortunately, this Dorcas was too young to have married the Schoolmaster, whose children (including Emmanuel) were born between 1578 and 1606. This calls into question who her husband was. Perhaps because of this, Alexander George Downing named her as the wife of George Downing of Ballykelly, who happened to be a contemporary. Yet we have confirmation of Dorcas’s husband, George, being buried in 1655 at St. Peter’s Spexhall in Suffolk, and his gravestone mentions Dorcas and her father, William Blois. We also have a record that George of Ballykelly in about 1663 sought to be buried on Church Island, Lough Beg. This still leaves Dorcas’s husband unaccounted for. 

[Robert Stedall]

Part 5

Evidence to link Adam Downing to Arthur Downing of Lexham
It has been explained above that Alexander George identified Lieutenant John Downing, who arrived in Ireland prior to the Battle of Kinsale, as the son of Arthur Downing of Lexham. Apart from the Memoir, the only tenuous evidence to corroborate it is the knowledge that Sir Richard Wingfield, the Queen’s Marshal in Ireland, was his grandmother’s second cousin. Perhaps he took a young kinsman under his wing. We also know that Sir Richard came to Derry in 1608 to put down O’Doherty’s rebellion, so it is possible that Lieutenant John was left behind there as part of a peace keeping force. We have nothing to confirm Alexander George’s assertion that John married a Margaret and had a son George. Certainly, a George Downing is recorded in a Muster of Londonderry in 1628 and was a tenant on the Fishmonger’s proportion with leases mentioning him there up to 1659. We have found no record that he married or had children. We have found no record of a second George Downing, purportedly George of Ballykelly’s son, mentioned in the Memoir as the Comptroller of Customs, or of his wife, Jane, daughter of Hugh Montgomery of Ballygowan. The Montgomery Manuscripts (the principal source of Montgomery genealogy) do not record a Hugh Montgomery of Ballygowan. A Hugh Montgomery of Ballymagawn, who is mentioned, does not fit with the dates. Yet Hugh Montgomery of Gransheogh, acquired lands at Maghera (near Bellaghy) and provided ‘several daughters who he matched well’. He had a son and a grandson, both William. We have found a document confirming that Colonel Adam Downing lent £800 to the grandson, William, secured on his estates. It seems probable that this was a loan to a cousin.

A leap of faith is required to accept that Adam Downing is a descendant of Arthur Downing by this route, but it seems a lot more plausible, than making him a son of some Henry Downing in England. The motive of Downing and Wilberforce is clear; they wanted to demonstrate the Irish family’s connection to the Downing baronetcy. This now looks less likely.

The impact of our findings
If we accept the hypothesis that Arthur Downing of Lexham is the ancestor of Colonel Adam Downing, it means that the Irish Downings are descendants of the Norfolk rather than the Suffolk families. As there is no known connection between the two groups, it means that the Irish Downings are not related to Emmanuel Downing, Sir George Downing and his baronetcy, or to Downing College, Cambridge. This causes a significant change to our previous assumptions.
What is astonishing is that Alexander George Fullerton and his genealogist, seem to have been correct in linking Adam to Arthur Downing through these earlier generations living in Ireland. The Memoir is the only record which we have found which follows this route, and, in the absence of the Dublin Public Records Office, we have not been able to find the evidence that they must have established. Sadly, they appear to have left no notes.

Alexander George was not entirely right, as he continued to follow Burke’s erroneous contention that Sir George Downing was the son of the Rev. Calybute Downing, and hence a member of the Norfolk family and thus Alexander George’s kinsman. Although he included Henry as another son of the Rev. Calybute, he is no longer shown as the father of Adam. Unfortunately for him, he had quartered the Brett coat of arms with his own. As he was now contending that he was not descended from the Rev. Calybute Downing and Margaret Brett, he must have known that his coat of arms was wrong!

It can be assumed that Downing and Wilberforce, who published their record about eight years after Alexander George, saw the first but not the second version of his Memoir. Notwithstanding that they had seen Nicholas’s will, they concocted yet another Irish connection to the baronetcy by linking Emmanuel as a son of Calybute Sr.

[Robert Stedall]

Adam Downing at the siege of Londonderry

Part 1

Some of you have shown an interest in Adam Downing's role at the siege of Londonderry and the battle of the Boyne. I have undertaken some considerable research into this, which you may find of value.

Adam Downing’s role at the siege of Londonderry and the battle of the Boyne

The principal contemporary record of the siege of Londonderry is the published diary of the Rev. George Walker, a transcript of which can be examined on http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=eebo;idno=A67017.0001.001.
This does not focus particularly on the events of the siege, but is designed to promote the efforts of Walker himself and the Anglican Church of Ireland.  The only mention of Adam Downing and his Dobbin cousins, John and his son William, (Major John Dobbin was Nicholas’s cousin and an executor of his will), is as members of a Court Martial to ‘rectify all misdemeanours’ in the City. They were all signatories to a humble address expressing their loyalty to William and Mary signed by 146 survivors. Of these John Dobbin was the twelfth signatory. William Dobbin and Adam Downing signed much lower down the list. Mackenzie’s Narrative of the Siege of Derry written largely as a Presbyterian criticism of Walkers’ diary, adds nothing more about them.

At the beginning of the siege, ‘Captain Adam Downing of Bellaghy’ is named by James II in a long list of ‘traitors’. It is likely that he joined his landlord, Colonel Clotworthy Skeffington, in an attempt to hold the line of Dromore, prior to the siege, and when this failed he went with Skeffington to seek refuge within Londonderry’s walls. (Skeffington threatened to burn down the gates to gain entry.) Yet, according to William R. Young in The Fighters of Derry (1932). Skeffington set out from Antrim with his father, the 2nd Viscount Massereene, and a list of their original officers does not include Adam. At some point, Major John Mitchelburne (later Colonel and, after Baker’s death, Governor of Londonderry) took over command of the Skeffington Regiment. Adam’s name is still not in a list of the regiment’s new officers. Nevertheless, it is reasonable to assume that he was associated with Skeffington.

The first record of Adam Downing’s heroism comes from the inscription on his tomb at the Mausoleum at St. Tida’s Bellaghy, which may have been written by his son John. It says:
He gave signal proof of his courage at the Siege of Derry and Battle of The Boyne where he commanded an independent Company in confidence of Will. In consequence of which, he was appointed by Government in the year 1715 one of the Commissioners of Array. Soon after was made Lieutenant Colonel of Militia Dragoons and on the 18th January in the same year Deputy Governor of this County.

End of Part 1

[Robert Stedall]

Adam Downing at the siege of Londonderry

Part 2

In 1794, to commemorate the centenary of the siege, G. Douglas produced Derriana, a compilation of records of the siege, including Walker’s Diary and Mackenzie’s criticism. Although it includes numerous short histories and poems, Adam is not mentioned in them. At the end of the compilation there is a poem, Londeriados, thought to have been written about ten years after the siege. It runs to twenty-seven pages, but makes no mention of Adam. Nevertheless, it mentions Major John Dobbin in the section, outlining the battle for Windmill Hill. This was an outcrop outside the Bishop’s Gate that had been taken by the Jacobites. It was imperative that it should be recaptured, as it threatened the gate. The defending forces launched an attack with 5,000 men led by Colonel Ramsey. 2,500 of them, including Ramsay, were killed. At this point:

   Major Dobbin led some valiant men
   Who presently the Irish trenches gain. 

In 1823, the Rev. John Graham, MA (1774-1884), Rector of Magilligan, north-east of Newtown Limavady, compiled ‘A History of the Siege of Londonderry and the Defence of Enniskillen’. In a later edition, it incorporates parts of Lord Macaulay’s History of England, which devotes a chapter to the detailed events of the siege. This mentions Adam’s role in the Court Martial, and Major Dobbin’s part in the retaking of Windmill Hill (which may well have been sourced from Londeriados). It records that ‘great services were also rendered to the City by’ Major Dobbin among others. Captain William Dobbin, who was an advocate, was appointed as one of six commissioners to treat with the enemy on 13th July to try to gain time for the relieving ships to arrive. He was also sent by Walker on 4th August, as part of a deputation to congratulate Major-General Kirk on his arrival.

It would appear that Graham was a strong supporter of the Orange Order; he also wrote a series of ballads, particularly to commemorate the ancestors of prominent Orangemen, which will, by then, have included the Downing descendents. In one of these, which extends to thirty-two verses, the twenty-seventh verse says:

                From Charlemont came Caulfield's force           
           Chichester from Dungannon
      With horse and foot that from Dromore
           Escap’d the Irish cannon;
      Colhoun from Letterkenny came,
           On angry foes proud frowning.
      From Dawson’s Bridge, his fair abode,
           Came gallant Adam Downing.

It then provides a short biography for each name. For Adam, it states:

Captain Adam Downing, of the county of Londonderry, was attainted by King James’s Parliament. He was ancestor of the late Rev. Clotworthy Downing, Rector of Leckpatrick, in the County of Tyrone, who inherited from him a considerable property in the neighbourhood of Castledawson and other places. He died at his residence near that town, many years after the revolution, and was buried in the family vault at Bellaghy, in the county of Londonderry, where a handsome monument was erected to his memory.

[Robert Stedall]

Adam Downing at the siege of Londonderry

Part 3

There is a second version of this poem by Graham, known as the Catalogue, written in 1841. The 29th verse reads:

                        From Charlemont came Caulfield’s corps,
                             Chichester from Dungannon,
                        With many more who at Dromore
                             Escaped King James’s cannon.
                        Porter strong, Leslie and Long,
                             Macartney and brave Downing,
                        Spike and Spaight held shipway gate,
                             At the boom we lost brave Browning.

In this version, the biography on Adam states:

Captain Adam Downing, a distinguished defender of the city, ancestor of the late Rev. Clotworthy Downing, rector of Leckpatrick, in the county of Tyrone. The family has long been respectably settled in the county of Londonderry.

In a book of poems dedicated to the Orange and Conservative Societies collated in 1822, one verse reads:

George Walker and Murray rode here in a hurry,
     With Saunderson, Cairnes, and Noble, renown’d
Stout Canning and Rawson, with Downing and Dawson,
     Unmov’d on their post here in Derry were found;
With Knoxes and Rosses, Hills, Grahams and Crosses,
     And Beresford brave, from the town of Coleraine,
Dunbar, Halls and Rices, with Blairs, Brookes, and Prices,
     All fac’d the proud foe with a noble distain.

In a ballad forming part of a collection in the Bodleian Library in Oxford published in 1869, the 4th verse reads:
 
Here our noble fathers bled,
     For the truth so glorious, O.
When all earthly hopes had fled,
     Battling - yet victorious, O.
Till brave Downing - townsman born -
     Saved his birthplace when forlorn,
And the First of August Morn
     Dawned on a Maiden City, O.

This implies that Adam was born in the City of Londonderry, which now seems quite plausible. While not too much emphasis, perhaps, should be placed on poems designed to highlight the heroism of Orangemen, an aura has gathered around Adam Downing, which may not be entirely warranted. 

[Robert Stedall]

Adam Downing at the siege of Londonderry

Part 4

Major John Dobbin, whose family had long since emigrated to America, is not forgotten for his part in in the retaking of Windmill Hill. Graham writes:

   In the attack was valiant Ramsay slain,
   Of full five thousand scarcely half remain.
        Dobbin, as Major, some bold heroes led,
        Before whose sword the frightened Irish fled.

William Young in Fighters of Derry (p. 164), reports on Adam that ‘After the relief of Derry, he received a commission in King William’s army, serving at the Boyne and in the subsequent campaign. He signed the address to King William.’ Although there is a list of officers at the Boyne, including Colonel Clotworthy Skeffington, Adam is not mentioned in it. While not too much emphasis, perhaps, should be placed on poems designed to highlight the heroism of Orangemen, an aura has gathered around Adam Downing.

Alexander George Fullerton’s Memoir provides another biography of him, which states:

ADAM DOWNING Esquire, eldest son and heir, was born in 1666 and accompanied William 3rd to Ireland and held the rank of Colonel in his Army. At the conclusion of the campaigns of l689/90, he was made Deputy Governor of the County of Londonderry, Colonel of a Regiment of Horse, and a Commissioner of Array, having already received a large tract of land, now worth about £6000 a year, as a reward for his services in the Field, called Ballaghy, Magharefelt County of Derry. It is still in the possession of the Family, together with the sword, which he wore at the siege of Derry and the Battle of the Boyne - the Title Deed according to tradition of the Estate. He was one of the Defenders of Derry, where the sufferings from the protracted siege of 90 days and the heroic valour displayed by the officers and men won for them the admiration of their country. Colonel Downing immediately after it raised a body of men at his own expense to serve in the campaign, which terminated in the Battle of the Boyne, where he displayed considerable ability and obtained the title of Gallant, for in a contemporary Ballad called the Battle of the Boyne are the following lines [see above]:
From Dawson‘s Bridge his fair abode
Came gallant Colonel Downing.

His popularity was very great on his estates, for although he lived at a period when political and religious feelings were wound up to their highest pitch, he was just and tolerant towards those who were opposed to him in opinion and severely condemned the penal enactments exercised against the defeated party. and foretold the evil consequences likely to ensue from a Policy at once so unjust and so impolitic. He was charitable and hospitable and imbued with a strong sense of religion. His will which is dated 1716 presents a curious picture of the times, begins thus - First I commend my Soule to Almighty God that through the blessed merits of my Redeemer Jesus Christe my sins may be forgiven. [Most wills of this period begin in a similar vein] He died December 15th 1719 deeply lamented by his relations and friends and was followed by thousands to the Mausoleum in the Church Yard of Bellaghy, where he lies buried.

He married Margaret [in fact Anne, who was a niece not a daughter of the Coleraine family] Daughter of John Jackson Esq of Coleraine, an honorable alliance as he himself terms it, and had two Sons,

Henry named after his Grandfather died a minor, and
John, his successor in the Family Estates.

The Epitaph on the monument of Colonel Downing gives the descent from Devonshire.

[Robert Stedall]

Adam Downing at the siege of Londonderry

Part 5

Despite clearly implying that Adam arrived from England, Alexander George later changed his mind, probably in the light of seeing the will of Adam’s uncle, Nicholas Downing. He now claimed that Adam’s family had been in Ireland for three generations before him. Again, it is probable that Downing and Wilberforce had access to this Memoir, as they recorded with some embellishment:

COLONEL ADAM DOWNING was a distinguished partisan of King William III, and went to Ireland with him in 1690. He held the rank of Colonel in his army, raised a body of men at his own expense, and was present at the siege of Derry, where he gave early and signal proofs of his courage, participating in the Battle of the Boyne (July 12, 1690), and contributing eminently by his gallantry and skill to the success of the party with which he was engaged. He received the appointments of Deputy Governor of the County of Derry, Colonel of the Militia, and was one of the Commissioners of Array. He was also granted by the King a large tract of land in County Derry. He died May 17 1719, and was buried at Bellaghy. The inscription on his monument mentions his descent from the ancient Devonshire family of Clotworthy [which it does not!].

According to Young, ‘he acquired considerable estates in the neighbourhood of Bellaghey (sic), marrying a Miss Jackson of Coleraine, and was a Deputy-Governor of Co Derry’. Yet Young does not say that he did anything conspicuously gallant.

Robert Stedall