William Downes (1792-1868) & Ann Davey (1799-1886)
William Downes was the son of Joseph Downes, a gentleman farmer, and Ann Spencer. He was born on 7 September 1792 and baptised on 17 January 1793 at Lamarsh, Essex.
He attended Dedham Grammar School and then worked as a land agent.
Ann Davey was born on 21 August 1798, the daughter of Peter Davey, a coal merchant, and Elizabeth Mills. She was baptised at Christ Church, Southwark on 5 December. She grew up in Camberwell, then a semi-rural. affluent sub-urban area. He family, however, maintained its connection with Dedham in Essex, where her father owned property.
On 18 October 1821 William Downes Esq of Colchester married Ann Davey, daughter of Peter Davey Esq of Champion Hill, at Camberwell church.
William and Ann initially lived at North Hill in Colchester, where their eldest children were baptised at St Peter’s church – Anna on 19 September 1823, Elizabeth Henrietta on 3 December 1824, and William Edward Downes on 19 February 1828.
About this time the family moved to Hill House, Dedham, which they first rented and then bought – this house and its surrounding farmland had been owned and Ann’s grandmother Katherine Hurlock. William also owned other properties in Dedham, and when he was examined by the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Agriculture in 1833 was described as a “farmer and land agent”.
Their two younger children were baptised at Dedham, Laura on 9 March 1829 and Major Francis Downes on 6 May 1834. Both sons, William Edward and Major Frances, attended Dedham Grammar School.
In 1832, the Essex Standard reported “In the course of the last week, the labourers of William Downes, Esq, of Hill House, Dedham, were liberally rewarded for their exertions in the gathering in the harvest for that gentleman, by an excellent dinner of good old English fare, which they partook of under a marquee…Music was provided, and Mrs Downes presented the labourers’ wives with a handsome donation on the occasion. At the conclusion, Mr Downes thanked the men in terms which made an indelible impression on their minds…and the party broke up highly delighted with their master’s generous conduct and their mistress’s benefactions.”
Electoral records, and the 1841 and 1851 census returns listed William, a land agent, and Ann living at Hill House. Later records noted that William remodelled the grounds of Hill House as parkland.
As a land agent William acted on behalf of many landowners across Essex and Suffolk and acted as a Commissioner executing the Land Enclosure Acts. He was one of the witnesses at the House of Commons Select Committee “to inquire into the present state of agriculture, and of person employed in agriculture in the United Kingdom”. Another example of his work was reported in The Times in 1849, which described how he provided evidence to Lord Duncan’s parliamentary committee of Crown woods and forests after conducting surveys in his own time and at his own expense : “The country at large is considerably indebted to Mr William Downes. This gentleman, a surveyor and land agent of long experience and extensive practice, entered upon a progress through the royal forests of England, and with true professional zeal drew up a gratuitous estimate of their condition and capabilities.”
William was also land agent for the Harwich Railway and Eastern Union Railway. In addition to his own house and its gardens, he owned several cottages and parcels of land in Dedham as well as land at Ardleigh, Harwich and Brantham (Suffolk), some of it abutting the railways.
William was also a governor of Dedham Grammar School, where his sons were educated. William”s prominence in local affairs was used to benefit his family. In 1853 his son-in-law, the Rev Gerald Lermit, was appointed headmaster of the school. In 1859, the living of Baylham in Suffolk, valued at £256, was under the patronage of William Downes Esq of Hill House and was awarded to his son, the Rev William Edward Downes. The Post office directory of 1865 described St Peter’s Baylham as “the living is a rectory, annual value £300, with 40 acres of glebe land, in the gift of William Downes, Esq, and held by the Rev William Edward Downes, MA, of Wadham College”.
William and Ann moved to a house called “Stonylands” on Gun Hill to the west of Dedham, where they were living by 1861. In the Gothic style, dating from c.1840, this was a mainly single storey house (the entrance hall, dinning room, drawing room, conservatory, breakfast room, five principal bedrooms and two dressing rooms were on one floor). It was described as “a comfortable residence, standing in about 18 acres of ornamental grounds and pasture, with a large sheet of water, surrounded by rhododendron beds and slopes…commanding extensive and picturesque views to Harwich, are very ornamental, having been tastefully laid out by [William Downes].” A boat house and fishing were a few minutes’ walk from the house on the river Stour. There were also “servants’ bedrooms, and suitable offices beneath” as well as stabling for three horses, a coach house, coachman’s cottage, kitchen garden, vinery, gardener’s cottage. (Chelmsford Chronicle 1869)
In 1863, the “picturesque grounds” hosted the Stour Valley Horticultural Society’s first annual show.
William Downes died on 27 December 1868 at Stonylands, Dedham, aged 76.
After William’s death, Ann lived with her son at Baylham Rectory in Suffolk, where she died 16 May 1886.
They were buried at Dedham and were memorialised in a window in the north aisle of the church.
William and Ann’s children:
- The Rev. William Edward Downes (1828-1899) was vicar of Baylham in Suffolk. When serving as curate of Hadleigh, Suffolk, he had married Sophia Judith Bonner, the daughter of Charles Bonner of Spalding on 30 August 1854. Of their children: Rev A M Downes was vicar of Batheaston; William Knox Downes served in the 1879-80 Afghan War and in the Burmese Expedition of 1885-87 (and was awarded the Distinguished Service Order, being the first Lieutenant to receive it) and died at Batheaston in 1912 a retired Colonel of H.M. Indian Army; the youngest daughter married General Sir Richard Farren KCB.
- Elizabeth Henrietta Downes (1823-1892) married Gerald Lermit.
- Major Francis Downes (1834-1923), CMG (1885) entered the Royal Artillery after attending the Woolwich Royal Military Academy. He served in the Crimean War and later held positions as an instructor as well as commanding the Royal Artillery at Mauritius (1863-65) and Saint Helena (1869-71). As Major-General, he was commandant of the South Australian Miliary Force (1877-85) and Secretary of Defence for Victoria (1885-88). He died in 1923 and was buried at Brighton Cemetery, Melbourne, Australia. One of his sons, Major-General Rupert Downes CMG, KstJ, VD, served in the Australian Medical Corps, including as Lieutenant-Colonel in command of the 3rd Light Horse Field Ambulance at Gallipoli, being appointed in 1934 as director-general of the Australian Miliary Forces, and was the third most senior Australian officer to die in WWII when the plane his was travelling in crashed near Cairns in 1945.
- Anna (182X-1853) married Frederick Randall. She died on 20 August 1853.
- Laura (183X-1876) married James Medows Rodwell in 1857. She died on 8 April 1876 at Dedham.