John Dunn-Gardner (20 July 1811 – 11 January 1903), of Soham Mere and of Chatteris House, Isle of Ely, in Cambridgeshire (born as John Margetts, known as John Townshend from 1823 to 1843 and styled by the courtesy title Earl of Leicester from 1823 to 1843, known as John Dunn-Gardner from 1843-death) was a British politician and landowner. From his birth until his de-legitimization in 1843 he was the eldest legal son and heir apparent of George Townshend, 3rd Marquess Townshend (1778-1855), who was not however his biological father. He is otherwise notable in relation to the tangled marital history of his mother, the Marchioness Townshend.
Origins He was born on 20 July 1811 as "John Margetts", the eldest surviving natural son of John Margetts, a brewer from St Ives, by his mistress (or bigamous wife) Sarah Dunn-Gardner (d. 1858), (Marchioness Townshend), wife of George Townshend, 3rd Marquess Townshend (1778-1855), and only surviving daughter and heiress of William Dunn-Gardner (d.1831) of Chatteris House, Isle of Ely, Cambridgeshire. By law until his de-legitimization in 1843 he was deemed the eldest son and heir of 3rd Marquess Townshend, as his mother's marriage was never annulled. On 26 December 1823 when aged 12, his mother had him baptised with the name "John Townshend" at St. George's, Bloomsbury, and he adopted the use of the courtesy title Earl of Leicester, his legal father's subsidiary title. However all the children borne to his mother during her marriage were declared illegitimate by a private act of Parliament, the Townshend Peerage Act 1843 (6 & 7 Vict. c. 35 ), whereupon John assumed as his surname his mother's maiden name of Dunn-Gardner.
Career He was a Conservative member of parliament for Bodmin from 1841 to 1847, and served as a Justice of the Peace, a deputy lieutenant, and as High Sheriff of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire in 1859. In 1872, having inherited his maternal estates, John Dunn-Gardner was the sixth largest landowner in Cambridgeshire, ranking after the Earl of Hardwicke, the Duke of Bedford, John Walbanke Childers MP, the Duke of Rutland and William Hall. He was the second largest landowner to be resident principally in Cambridgeshire, and owned , or about 0.7% of all land in that county.Kevin Cahill (2001). Who Owns Britain (and Ireland)
Sarah, Marchioness Townshend
Sarah and her husband married on 12 May 1807, and were known as Lord and Lady Chartley, a courtesy title from his grandfather, the 1st Marquess Townshend. In September 1807, on the death of the 1st Marquess, the couple became the Earl and Countess of Leicester, also a courtesy title. They separated a few months later, in May 1808, without having produced issue, and she filed an ecclesiastical suit for annulment, alleging non-consummation of the marriage, i.e. that the couple had never had sex. While the suit was still pending, Lady Leicester eloped with John Margetts, a brewer, and married him in a bigamous ceremony at Gretna Green in October 1809. They had several children. Her first marriage was never dissolved, which became a legal problem for the succession of the Townshend peerages. In 1811 her legal husband became the 3rd Marquess Townshend, but after leaving him, she did not use his name for over a decade, calling herself Mrs. Margetts; and Margetts gave his surname to their children. Sarah survived both men: Margetts died in 1842,There is a monument in the south aisle of All Saints' Church, St Ives, Huntingdonshire/Cambridgeshire to John Margetts, d. 1842, and his brother William, d. 1818, only sons of John Margetts and Mary (Rugeley) his wife, of Hemingford Grey ('Parishes: St Ives', in A History of the County of Huntingdon: Volume 2, ed. William Page, Granville Proby and S Inskip Ladds (London, 1932), pp. 210-223 [accessed 28 December 2020 and Marquess Townshend died abroad in December 1855. She remarried a few weeks after her legal widowhood, to James Laidler on 10 January 1856, and died on 11 September 1858.
Settling of Dunn-Gardner estate in 1831
In August 1831 (three months before his deathWilliam Dunn-Gardner died 10 November 1831) Sarah's father William Dunn-Gardner (formerly "William Dunn") of Chatteris House, Isle of Ely, Cambridgeshire, bequeathed the estate of Soham Mere, bought with the funds he had settled on his daughter and her husband, to his eldest natural grandson then known as "John Townshend" (later John Dunn-Gardner), described in 1863 as a stranger in blood under the law.Attorney General vs Gardner, 1863 Hilary Term in The Exchequer Reports: Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Courts of Exchequer & Exchequer Chamber edited by Edwin Tyrrell Hurlstone and Francis Joseph Coltman, and published 1863. However, at the time (1831), John was his legitimate grandson, as he was born to his daughter within wedlock (albeit not fathered by her husband). William Dunn-Gardner apparently bequeathed the estate by name to ensure that his grandson would not be disinherited by any future legal steps taken by the Townshend family, which in fact happened in 1842.
Soham Mere was given to John's younger brother William Dunn-Gardner, of Fordham Abbey (purchased by William Dunn-Gardner in 1808), and descended in the family until 1974 when it was sold to the present owner.
De-legitimization in 1843 Sarah, Lady Townshend, and John Margetts had several children besides John who bore the surname "Margetts" until 26 December 1823, when there was a wholesale christening under the surname "Townshend", but they were all declared illegitimate by a private act of Parliament, the Townshend Peerage Act 1843 (6 & 7 Vict. c. 35 ), passed at the request of the Townsend family.Private Act (Not Printed), 6 & 7 Victoria I, c. 35 (12 July 1843), An Act to declare that certain Persons therein mentioned are not Children of the Most Honourable George Ferrars Marquis Townshend. HL/PO/PB/1/1843/6&7V1n126 . The message says in part: "The Townshend peerage case was one where Marquis Townshend (then called Lord Chartley) married Sarah Dunn Gardner in 1807; a year later she left her husband, sued in Ecclesiastical court to have the marriage annulled because of his impotence but dropped the suit and eloped with a brewer of St. Ives. Their children initially bore the brewer's name (Margetts) but from 1823 took the name Townshend, and one took the style of Earl of Leicester. The marquis took no steps to dissolve the marriage, and his brother had no means to dispute the legitimacy of the so-called Earl of Leicester, because no property depended on the title. As time went by and witnesses died off, it seemed the imposture might not be preventable. So the brother and heir presumptive petitioned the House of Lords for inquiry respecting the descent of these honours in May 1842. The next year the marquis himself also petitioned the House.
Ultimately a private bill was brought "to declare the illegitimacy of certain persons alleged or claiming to be children of the Most Honourable George Ferrars, Marquis Townshend". There was much debate (how could you bastardize the children of a valid and continuing marriage? Was the royal prerogative not infringed? What about ordinary courts?). In the end the bill received royal assent on July 12, 1843 intituled "An Act to declare taht certain persons therein mentioned are not children of the Most Honourable George Ferrars, Marquis Townshend" (6 & 7 Vict c. 35) and declaring that "the said several children of the said Sarah Gardner, Marchioness Townshend, hereinbefore respectively mentioned, are not nor were, nor shall they or any of them, be taken to be or be deemed the lawful issue of the said George Ferrars Marquis Townshend" (one child, having no legal guardian, was excepted from the provisions). (Based on Frederick Clifford, A History of Private Bill Legislation, 1885, vol. 1 p. 443–450.)" (One child, being a minor and having no legal guardian, was exempted from the act's provisions, but was similarly excluded from succession to the peerage by a second private bill as soon as he came of age.Private Act (not Printed), 10 & 11 Victoria I, c. 37 (1847), An Act to extend the Relief given by an Act of the Sixth and Seventh Years of the Reign of Her present Majesty, intituled An Act to declare that certain Persons therein mentioned are not Children of the Most Honourable George Ferrars Marquis Townshend. HL/PO/PB/1/1847/10&11V1n132 .) John himself was at the time a member of parliament, and after the passing of the Act he assumed his mother's surname of Dunn-Gardner.
Dunn-Gardner family The Dunn-Gardner family was descended from William Dunn-Gardner (d.1831) (born "William Dunn") and his wife the heiress Jane Gardner (d.1839), who married in 1783 and had an only surviving daughter and heiress Sarah Dunn-Gardner (Marchioness Townshend). Jane Gardner was herself the only surviving child and heir of John Gardner () of Chatteris HouseHis grandfather was also described as John Gardner, Esq., of Chatteris by the 1862 Burke's. who married his cousin, the daughter and heiress of John Marriott of Chatteris House by his wife Barbara Johnstone, sister of his mother. When John Gardner died in 1804, his son-in-law William Dunn was obliged under the will to change his name to Dunn-Gardner to inherit Chatteris House and the other Gardner estates. Burke's Peerage states that the grandson "John Townshend" / John Dunn-Gardner inherited Chatteris in 1839, after his maternal grandmother Jane Gardner had died in that year.A.F. Wareham and A.P.M Wright (2002). 'Fordham: Manors and other estates', A History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely: Volume 10: Cheveley, Flendish, Staine and Staploe Hundreds (north-eastern Cambridgeshire) (2002), pp. 395–402. Retrieved 13 February 2008.
Although A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain (1862) fails to mention Mr Dunn-Gardner's parentage (as the eldest natural son of the brewer John Margetts and his bigamous spouse Sarah Dunn-Gardner (Marchioness Townshend), it mentions that he had two surviving brothers (William and Cecil) and two sisters. The "Townshend Peerage Case" gives details of all the children fathered by John Margetts: a son (, died shortly afterwards) John Margetts, later John Dunn Gardner, above (), born and known as John Margetts and so enrolled in school although styling himself Earl of Leicester, but christened December 1823 (with his other siblings) with the surname of Townshends, and then assumed the style of Earl of Leicester until 1843. William Dunn-Gardner, of Fordham Abbey, near Newmarket, Cambridgeshire, JP (23 June 1812 – 1879), known as Lord William Townshend from 26 December 1823 until 1843 (as the alleged second surviving son of the 3rd Marquess Townshend), when he and his siblings were declared illegitimate by a private act of Parliament, the Townshend Peerage Act 1843 (6 & 7 Vict. c. 35 ). He inherited the Fordham Abbey estate from his maternal grandfather, but came into possession only in 1839 when his maternal grandmother died, and was at first an unpopular landlord.A.F. Wareham and A.P.M Wright (2002). Ibid. He married Angelina Wainwright (d. 1923), by whom he had one surviving son and heir Cyril. 3.1. Cyril Dunn-Gardner, of Fordham Abbey ()."Fordham Abbey is the seat of Cyril Dunn-Gardner esq.". He is possibly the same as Captain Francis Cyril Dunn-Gardner or Captain F.C. Dunn Gardner, who was commissioned into the army in 1891, promoted to Lieutenant in 1893, served in the Boer War, and disappeared from Army Lists by 1901, with the note "Removed from Army". Cyril was of age in 1895, and owned about in Fordham in 1910. He died without issue in 1911, leaving a life interest in the Abbey estate to his mother and former guardian, who died 1923, as above. The Fordham Abbey estate then passed in 1923 to Algernon Charles Wyndham Dunn Gardner (d. 1929), apparently by then the next heir male. (The estate fell to about by his death).