Dunnington-Jefferson family, of Thorganby and West Cottingwith


The Dunnington family were landowners in the East Riding from at least the seventeenth century.

Through the early eighteenth century they became the major landholders in Thorganby and West Cottingwith. Thomas Dunnington (d.1710) had at least three children, including Eleanor Dunnington, who married Emanuel Jefferson (d.1770) from a landowning family of Hook and Howden. In 1760 Emanuel Jefferson bought the manor of West Cottingwith and his son, Robert Jefferson (d.1811), expanded the West Cottingwith estate and established charities to educate the children of his tenants. Eleanor Dunnington's nephew, John Dunnington (1759-1840), rebuilt the schoolhouse and when Robert Jefferson died the manor of West Cottingwith and land in Hook and Howden passed to John Dunnington and he added the surname Jefferson.

John Dunnington-Jefferson held tithes worth over £100 per annum and in 1822 built Thorganby Hall. His land and assets were inherited by his nephew, Joseph Dunnington (1807-1880) who also added the name Jefferson. He had been vicar of Thorganby from 1832. His living was worth £200 per annum. He became prebend of York in 1852. He was responsible for building Thicket Priory in the 1840s and developing its 150 acre park. He controlled 7278 acres with a combined rental of nearly £11,000 and in addition he held over 500 acres in the West Riding which drew in over £1000. In 1839 he had married Anna Mervynia Vavasour and they had three sons. The eldest, Joseph John Dunnington-Jefferson (1845-1928), was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge. He became a barrister and justice of the peace and major of the Yorkshire Hussars. He died without issue and left his estates to his nephew, John Alexander Dunnington Jefferson (b.1884), who was educated at Eton and Sandhurst and joined the Royal Fusiliers in 1904.

He served in the First World War. He became Deputy Lieutenant of the East Riding in 1936. In 1955 he sold Thicket Priory to Carmelite nuns, so returning the land to its original use as the site of a women's religious order. He moved to Thorganby Hall but then sold all his East Yorkshire property in 1964. The circa 1500 items of the Dunnington-Jefferson family are entirely estate papers, especially for Hook, Howden, Thorganby and West Cottingwith, although there is also a small amount of related estate correspondence 1855-1869, the account book of Robert Jefferson in the 1770s, the arithmetic exercise book of Joseph Dunnington in 1819 and the journal of a continental tour in 1830. There are also the foundation papers of the Thorganby and West Cottingwith Association for the Prosecution of Felons dated 1829 and the minute book of the foundation 1829-1843. Papers for Howden include the 1582 letters patent granting tithes and seventeenth-century leases of the bishop's manor house.

A miscellany for York includes 16 election squibs 1780-1790, a mortgage for a house in the Shambles, a paper about the government of Sunday Schools and the 91st annual report of York County Hospital of 1832. In addition, there are bundles of papers related to the Drax Enclosure Act of 1773 and the Ouse Navigation Act of 1832. [DDJ]
 

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