Jacob
Garret Downing
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Before he died, Sir George Downing III gave sums of money
to his “housekeeper”, Mary Townsend, to put away for his daughter, Elizabeth.
By 16th January 1740 they amounted to such a considerable amount
that he wrote her a document stating
“This is to satisfy
my executors, and all others, that Mrs. Townsend, my house-keeper has, that was
mine, I gave for the use of her daughter, beside what
I have given her by the codicil to my will.”
(Quoted in French, op.cit. p.40)
When she realised he was dying
she sent a message to his cousin and heir, Jacob Garret Downing. He did not go at once but sent Mr Wingfield, his steward, to Gamlingay Park.
French’s research revealed that Mary went round the house searching all the
desks, drawers and cupboards for any money she could find. There was a large
parcel of banknotes, including six £500 notes which she’d been given before he
signed the above document. When she told his daughter, then
aged 23, that she had found bags containing £14,000 in sovereigns and other
coins, Elizabeth
suggested she should admit to holding £10,000 and keep the other £4,000. She
must have been aware that his will stipulated that she was left £250 a year and
Elizabeth £500
a year. Possibly annoyed that she had been left so little, she gave the £4,000
to William, her brother, to bury in the garden. When Mr
Winfield arrived she told him she had found £10,000 in coins but it’s not known
if she mentioned the notes. He was told that Sir George wanted two people to
witness the opening of his will so Mr Astell of
Woodbury Hall and another neighbour were called. When Sir Jacob arrived he
believed what he was told and Mary dutifully retrieved the £10,000.
He was buried in the same vault in Croydon Church
as his grandfather and grandmother, his father, baby brother James and his
uncle William, but not until the 29th June, an unusual 18th
century custom. He left £100 for the poor of the parishes of Gamlingay, East Hatley, Tadlow and Clopton and £100 to Mrs Pedley of Tetworth as he had forgotten to lend her a
book she wanted.
In spring 1742 he gave Elizabeth a lump sum of about £20,000 from
her father’s estate when she married John Bagnall. Probably as a result of her
father’s friendship with Mr Astell of Woodbury,
director of the South Sea Company, he had made an investment of £10,000 in the
company, which had paid handsome dividends. She took furniture and other
belongings from Gamlingay
Park and moved into 10 Downing Street.
On 17th May the same year Jacob married Margaret Price, thought by
some to be George III’s daughter but by French to be the daughter of the curate
of Barrington, in Somerset. According to Cole, he was assured
she would provide him with an heir but it was not to be. They took over the
house when Elizabeth
moved out.
Gossip eventually reached him about Mary Townsend having
more money and notes than she’d stated. Mr Wingfield
investigated and she admitted keeping £4,000 because she had so little to live
on and her lodgings were so expensive. Proceedings were taken against her to
recover the money but she died in March 1765 before the final judgment was
made. French described Mary as “the
erstwhile kitchen maid, the one time “greasy Joan who keels the pots”, was
probably the only woman who gave the founder of Downing College
bodily pleasure, as well as affection and respect.” The Bagnalls had to give up the £4,000, any
notes found to post date the 10th January 1740 as well as pay the
legal costs.
Like Sir George, he spent the summer months in Grey Friars
and, apart from visits to London
to attend Parliament, the rest of the time in Gamlingay enjoying the house and
gardens. Unlike his benefactor, he invested part of the inheritance on
renovating his estates. Joseph Cole, a local surveyor, was instructed to
produce detailed plans of his west Cambridgeshire estates. The large, leather
bound book, containing beautifully executed plans of fields and woods with
sketches of the front of each farmhouse, was completed by 1751 and is lodged in
Downing College’s archive. £30,000 was spent on
repairing old buildings, erecting new ones and enclosing open land. According
to French, he begrudged spending money on an estate he held as trustee for the
next heir and, at his wife suggestion, reduced their costs by putting the new
barns and farm buildings on wooden pattens or rollers so that, not physically
attached to the land, they could be removed, used elsewhere or sold.
Downing’s title and “His great Estate, the
largest of any Gentleman or Nobleman in this country,” passed to his cousin, Jacob Garret Downing. A number of
other sources refer to him as John Gerrard Downing. His father, Charles
Downing, was Sir George Downing I’s younger brother who, like his father,
acquired huge sums for public offices. Before returning to England he was Controller of the Customs at Salem, Massachusetts and then Inward and Outward Controller in the Port of London.
When Charles died in April 1740 he was described in the Gentleman’s Magazine as “vastly
rich”. To help him in his career,
Downing had Jacob nominated in 1741 for the second MP’s position at Dunwich and
sat with him in the House of Commons over the next six years.
When Jacob Downing inherited the Dunwich estate in 1749,
it allowed him, like his cousin, to be elected as their MP eight days before
his benefactor was buried. He let it be known that only men he approved of
could represent the other Dunwich seat and entered an agreement with a
prominent local citizen called Chapman whereby he would overlook the fee farm
rent he owed if he agreed to always vote for him and serve him in other ways.
It helped ensure that Soames Jenyns of Bottisham Hall
was returned as the other member in 1754, an action that so pleased the Duke of
Newcastle that Downing was promised a peerage. It didn’t happen. That year
Chapman’s debt had amounted to £13,391. 1s. 3d. It was
only when Lady Downing sued him for it, that her husband’s corruption was
exposed. During his years in politics he was closely associated with Lord Hardwicke
of Wimpole Hall and the Duke of Newcastle’s party. Between 1761 and 1763 he was
too ill to stand as MP but managed to replace Jenyns as MP with Henry Fox,
described as one of the most disliked men in England. When Fox
became a peer Jacob Downing became Dunwich’s MP once more but not for long.
He died on February 6th 1764 at his town house on Hill Street, Berkeley
Square in London
when he was 48. More details about Sir Jacob Downing and his wife’s political
intrigues can be found in O.G. Pickard’s Dunwich – the Rotten Borough. Once
again French provides his epitaph.
“In an
undistinguished way the last of the Downing baronets seems to have been a
better man than his cousin, the third Sir George. He was certainly a much
better landlord than the latter was in his later years. He took a pride in the
estates and did his best, as far as he though it
reasonable to do so as a trustee who could legally have no influence on the
future of the property after his death. As a member of parliament he was
conscientious and enjoyed the friendship of leading politicians. As a husband
he was undoubtedly loyal and devoted, and extended the affection he had for his
wife to her nephew and nieces. To Sir George’s mistress and illegitimate
daughter he behaved honourably, treating the former with respect and trust
until her lack of integrity was exposed, and ensuring that Elizabeth regularly
received the annuity under her father’s will by himself becoming a trustee for
its payment and directing that it was to continue after his death.
The one smirch on his
character which we know of is the flagrant act of political corruption in
respect of Chapman of Dunwich which he perpetrated soon after he came into the
inheritance, but that seems muck blacker to posterity than it appeared to many
of his contemporaries, for whom bribery was an essential and venial ingredient
of politics.
So also was the
toadyism which is apparent in Sir Jacob’s letters to the Duke of Newcastle about a peerage;
patronage and sycophancy were the oils which kept the political machine
functioning smoothly. In fact, the eagerness of the
last of his line to go to the House of Lords was probably an expression of his
wife’s wishes than of his own.”
(Francis, op.cit. pp.47-48)
When he died childless, the last male heir of the family, the title became extinct. Thomas Barnardiston had died in 1762 and the
two Peters some time earlier. He was said to own £100,000 in cash and stocks.
The value of the Downing properties and estates would
have been more than that. Their rents in 1765 were £4,858 9s. 2½d. Margaret,
his wife, insisted that she was entitled to inherit the Downing fortune and
that the trust to establish and expensive in those days as today, the details
of which are included in French’s History
of Downing College. She argued that it
contained “Manifold Errors, Incertaintys and Insufficiencys.”
She later married Sir George Bowyer and lived as a very wealthy woman endow a
college was void. The case went to court, as lengthy and on the revenue from
the Downing estates. In her will of December 1772 she left her estate to her
nephew, Captain Jacob Whittington. It included £176,000 in cash and stocks as
well as real estate her husband had inherited and the valuable development of Downing Street. This was contrary to Sir George Downing’s
will and caused quite a controversy. Downing
College website states
that she
“refused to give up the estates and the
various relatives who were Sir George's legal heirs had to take costly and
prolonged action in the Court of Chancery to compel her to do so. She died in
1778 but her second husband and the son of her sister continued to resist the
heirs-at-laws' action until 1800 when the Court decided in favour of Sir
George's will and George III granted Downing a Royal Charter.
By then the fortune which should have been
used to found and maintain the college had been gravely eroded and the estates
were so neglected and unprofitable that Downing began life poverty-stricken and
with poor prospects.”
(http://www.dow.cam.ac.uk/~do/Archive/main%20page.html)
After 50 years of litigation, on 22nd September 1800, the great seal was put on the charter and £150,000 was made available for the construction of Downing College.
They acquired the Tadlow and East
Hatley estates with the right to appoint the vicar. It later
acquired a shared patronage with the Bishop of Ely, Pembroke and Clare Colleges,
Cambridge and Balliol
College, Oxford in Gamlingay and Everton. It still has
these rights in the 21st century. As the Downing family had been
buried in a vault under the chancel floor in Croydon Church
with no memorials, the college paid for a memorial plaque to the family to be
erected in the Church in 1961.
There is nothing remaining of the
Downing’s magnificent mansion, moats, lakes, maze, gardens and serpentine path.
The vistas are there but not quite so dramatic. Jacob Downing’s wife spent
nothing on the estate after her husband died and it fell into the same state of
neglect and disrepair as at the time of Sir George III’s death. It was pulled
down in October 1776 on the instructions of Margaret Downing and her nephew
Captain Whittington to stop Downing
College getting their
hands on it. She came up with the idea of selling the stone, brick and timber
in such large lots that no one would buy them and she’d be able to use them to
build a new house nearby. This she was advised was collusion so she had to let
them go under the auctioneer’s hammer for whatever was bid. The sale was over in
three hours and it did not realise more than £800. Who it was sold to is
unknown but possibly local landowners used them to build other properties in
the neighbourhood. Although some say that the iron railings from Gamlingay Park
were taken to Downing Street to be reassembled, Stevens and French state that
they went to Mount Prospect, Margaret’s property on Putney Heath in London.
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