George Downing II (1656 –
1711)
When George Downing I died in 1684, his son
George inherited his father’s estates when he was 28. In the same year, his wife
gave birth to a son, also called George, in East Hatley. Few details about the
second George Downing have come to light. Following his father’s footsteps,
between 1681 and 1690 he had the same lucrative job as his father, a Teller of
the Exchequer, which helped to further build on his inherited fortune. Part of
it was used to rebuild the chancel in Croydon Church. He married Katharine, the
eldest daughter of James, the third Earl of Salisbury.
In R. V. Hatley’s account
of the Hatley family, Downing was said to have been a “shadowy figure”
and even his son said he was “not of sound judgement”. In O. G. Pickard’s account of the Downing’s
political intrigues in his booklet Dunwich
– the Rotten Borough he described him as “a nonentity who displayed his father’s talent for making money for
himself out of the public purse”.
Between 1668 – 9 he was a Fellow-Commoner at Clare Hall which gave
him dining rights and allowed him to mix with some of the intellectuals at
Cambridge. The following year he gave £200 to the college to erect new
buildings. When he wrote his will in 1688, he named the Master of Clare Hall as
one of his trustees.
His wife died in August 1688 “from her husband’s unkindness to her”. What the unkindness was is unknown. Possibly
he had had an affair as records show that he continued to live in
East Hatley with Priscilla Payne, a local woman, who bore him a son. In 1695 he
was excommunicated by the church for “living
incontinently”, the 17th century term for leading an immoral
life. A family in Gamlingay called Payne claimed to have been descended from
this relationship but it was not proved.
In the early 18th
century he entered politics. Details of his rotten borough in Dunwich can be
read by following this link.
When John
Pedley, the MP for Huntingdonshire, starting the construction of a fine
three-story mansion on the adjoining Tetworth estate in 1710 and William Astell, the
director of the South Sea Company in London was having an even huger mansion
built beside St Mary’s Church in Everton, Downing
set about
building his own handsome mansion in Gamlingay Park. However, before his plans
could be realised, Downing died at East Hatley in June 1711 when he was only 55
leaving his 26-year-old son, George, to inherit the title and the Downing
estate.