Dorset Ancestors Rotating Header Image

Sir John Trenchard

Bradford Peverell

On the weekday afternoon we visited this pleasant village we saw no one: it had the feel of a commuter dormitory for Dorchester, being just three and a half miles from the county town and about half a mile from the main road to Yeovil it is ideally positioned for the role. Some of the dwellings here appear to be recent developments and others are tasteful restorations of older properties. Appearances can be deceptive; peel away the patina of modernity and there is much of interest to be found here.

In the closing years of the 17th century Robert Hutchins was curate at St. Mary’s, Bradford Peverell, and rector of Dorchester All Saints; his son John was born in the village on the 21st of September 1698. Like his father, John was a man of the church and held positions at Swyre, Melcombe Horsey and Holy Trinity Wareham, all the while collecting information for what was to become the most important reference work on the history of the county: The History and Antiquities of the County of Dorset.  (See our article in the Biography Category: ‘John Hutchins’ published January 13th 2010.)

William Howley became Rector of Bradford Peverell on the 23rd of May 1811 and held the position until 1813; in 1828 he was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury. With Lord Conyngham, the Lord Chamberlain, he went to Kensington Palace at 6am on the 20th of June 1837 and announced to Victoria her accession to the throne. A year later he crowned Queen Victoria at her Coronation. The ceremony did not go smoothly and Howley is reported to have said afterwards: “we should have had a full rehearsal.”  He later conducted the marriage of Queen Victoria to Prince Albert and earlier he had presided over the Coronation of King William IV.

Ownership of the manor of Bradford can be traced back to the reign of Edward the Confessor (1042-1066) but the suffix Peverell was added when Richard I granted the manor to Robert Peverel and his grant was confirmed by King John. The Peverel family owned the manor for over three hundred years to the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.

Domesday Book (1086) records that Bradford was held by Tol or Thurli a Dane who owned several Dorset estates. These passed to a Norman Chieftain William de Ow (or d’eu) the Count of Picardy, who came to England with the Conqueror. In 1096 he was executed at Salisbury for treason against William II of England, the third son of William the Conqueror. The estates then passed to the Earl of Hereford and later became part of the Duchy of Lancaster.

During the reign of Henry I (1100-1135) and Stephen (1135-1154) the manors of Bradford and Muckleford came into the possession of the De Port family as tenants of the Duchy of Lancaster. Adam de Port was outlawed and his land forfeited to King Richard I who, as we tell above, granted the manors to Robert Peverel but during the reign of Elizabeth I the male Peveril line became extinct: William Peverel leaving an only daughter, Jane.

Jane married Nicholas Meggs of Cambridgeshire. The Meggs’ suffered heavy losses during the Civil War and in 1683 Thomas Meggs sold the manor of Muckleford, a small hamlet within the parish, to make good the family finances. The rest of the parish remained in the hands of the Meggs family until 1770, when Harry Meggs sold it to John Purling. (See our story ‘The Muckleford Treasure’ in the Bradford Peverell category).

John Purling was a director of the East India Company and from 1774 to 1784 the Member of Parliament for Melcombe Regis. He built a house about a mile from the church that burnt down in 1822.

In 1848 the manor passed by will to Hastings Nathaniel Middleton and he built a new house in 1866. He was a nephew of John Purling and grandson of Nathaniel Middleton, the agent to Warren Hastings at Lucknow in 1774: Warren Hastings was Governor General of India from 1774 to 1785.  In 1898 his son, Hastings Burton Middleton, became lord of the manor; he lost two sons: Hastings Charles Middleton to a chill caught at Oxford while rowing and Captain Frank Middleton during the Persian Gulf Expedition of 1914 during the First World War and so it was Hastings Burton Middleton’s grandson, Lieutenant Hastings Frank Middleton R.A., who became lord of the manor. It was Hastings Nathaniel Middleton who rebuilt the church in 1850.

John Hutchins has left us a description of the old church: “The church is a small and ancient fabric, dedicated to the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. It stands on the south side of the parish, near the seat of the Meggs’, and consists of a chancel tiled, a body, and a small south aisle, the burial place of the Meggs’ between both, covered with lead. In a wooden turret, covered also with lead, are three bells. It has a porch, to build which Robert Roberts, rector, by will 1852, left 60s.”

The present church was designed in the early English style by Decimus Burton and consists of a chancel, nave, south porch and a west tower with a steeple of Portland stone; this can be seen from some distance.  There were originally three bells: one dated A.D.1616, another dated 1674 and a third cast by William Knight of Blandford is inscribed: Harry Meggs Esq C.W 1747. These bells were recast in 1896 when a new tenor and treble were added with inscriptions to the Middleton family.

Some of the stained glass from the old church has found a home in the new church and tells the story of the Virgin Mary. Another window which contains glass from the old Church illustrates the arms of William of Wykeham, who purchased the advowson of the living in 1391. The east window of the chancel also survives from the old Church.

Thomas Gerard in his book Coker’s Survey of Dorestshire (1732) wrote: “Bradford Peverll. The Seate for a longe time of the antient Familie of Peverells whose estate about Henry the Eighth’s time fell by a Female Heire to Nicholas Meggs and his Posteritie enjoy it. Neare Bradford the River dividing itself, making an Island of manie faire and fruitful Maedowes, and there joineth againe a little belowe Dorchester, the more northern branch, being the lesser, amongst these Maedoes runneth by Wolton, more trulie Wolvehampton, a fine and rich Seate which (by the daughter and Heire of John Jordan the antient owner of it) came to John Mohune. His only daughter and Heire Alice brought a faire Estate unto her husband Henry Trinchard of Hampshire whose Grandchilde Sir Thomas Trinchard, gracious with King Henry the Eighth was called chief Builder of the Habitation of Sir George Trinchard, a Man of Great Courage.” (See our article: ‘Thomas Gerard of Trent’ Published 17th July 2011, in the Trent category.)

The parish is a little less than 3,000 acres and has been home to a population of between 300 and 400 since 1851, the 2001 census records 344 inhabitants. In the 1880’s the village supported two grocers, a butcher, a blacksmith, a builder, a dairyman, a miller and three farmers. A National School for sixty children was established in the village in 1836 and for many years the village benefited from having a railway station – Bradford Peverell and Stratton Halt.

The village stands on the south bank of the River Frome. Bradford is a reference to the ‘broad ford’ over the river on the site of a Roman bridge. The village is approached by crossing over the river on an iron bridge which replaced an earlier wooden structure. A Roman aqueduct in the form of a clay-lined channel that was used to get water from the River Frome at Frampton to Durnovaria (Dorchester) can still be seen.  Evidence of ancient occupation can be found in the parish: there are four Neolithic Long Barrows and, from the Bronze Age, twenty-eight round barrows.

Sir John and the House of Trenchard

In the parish church of Bloxworth near Bere Regis in east Dorset, visitors can see a memorial in white marble mounted high on the wall of a side chapel. The plaque is in memory of one of Stuart England’s most accomplished and controversial aristocratic statesmen or “principal secretary of state for life”; a figure as true to the soil of Dorset as Barnes or Hardy.

This colourful character was Sir John Trenchard. Trenchard was born in Lychett Matravers in March 1649, where his family had long held a manor, though from the late 15th century onwards the family seat was at Wolferton (or Wolveton) House. This house, near Charminster, had its foundations laid around 1480 by an earlier John Trenchard and his son Thomas, who in turn had inherited the estate through John’s marriage. Wolveton was originally conceived as a grand early Tudor mansion with Elizabethan additions, but was later largely demolished, and the present house is only the south west wing of the earlier one.

Thomas’s son, Sir George, had a daughter called Grace, who married into another of Dorset’s manorial families, the Strangways (Strangeways). Apart from his contribution to the building of Wolveton, Sir Thomas also embellished the 12th century church of St.Mary at Charminster by adding its imposing west tower. He also held office as Sheriff of Somerset and Dorset in 1509 and 1523, but is probably best known for hosting Archduke Phillip of Austria and his wife Juana (Joanna) at Wolveton after they were shipwrecked off the Dorset coast in the great storm of 1506. The story then follows that Thomas recruited a kinsman, John Russell, to act as his interpreter as he could not speak Spanish. James I in 1613 knighted Thomas.

Sir Thomas had a son – also called Thomas – born in 1615, who became the father of the later Sir John of Lytchett. The Trenchards were a family of longstanding puritan and parliamentary leanings. Two cousins, William Sydenham and John Sadler, were both soldiers and administrators in the service of Cromwell, and as he grew up John came to detest the unprincipled court life of Charles II. From the age of 15 to 18 John attended New College Oxford without obtaining a degree and went on to study law at the Middle Temple. Here he met up with Hugh Speke, a distant relative and son of Sir George Speke of White Lackington. (Sir George Trenchard’s wife was Ann Speke).

In association with his cousins John joined the Blue Riband Club, a society of agitators meeting at the King’s Head Tavern in Fleet Street. Although there was never any evidence of his being involved in Titus Oates’ famous popish plot, Trenchard would certainly have been an anti-papal sympathiser. When he was 30 in 1679, John entered Parliament to represent Taunton, and joined those who wished to bar the Duke of York from the throne. He attended meetings held by the dissidents, who were concerned that the Duke would attempt to restore Catholic prominence in England. In 1682 Trenchard married Hugh Speke’s sister Phillipa, then 18.

In 1683 some dissidents hatched a conspiracy to murder the King and his brother in Hertfordshire as they returned from the races at Newmarket. The Rye House Plot, as this conspiracy came to be known went wrong, casting suspicion on Trenchard and his cronies. Together with Lord Russell and Algernon Sydney he was arrested and sent to the Tower. (Interestingly, he was later able to recover his own arrest warrant, now in the archive of the Dorset County Record Office in Dorchester). Russell and Sydney were subsequently executed, but Trenchard appears to have turned his coat with sufficient alacrity to escape the same fate by possibly agreeing to pose as a double agent supplying the government with intelligence about anti-Stuart sedition in the west country!

As no concrete evidence could be levelled against him, Trenchard was released. While John was staying with his father-in-law at Illminster in 1685, the Duke of Monmouth landed in Lyme Bay to raise his notorious rebellion against the King in support of his claim to the English crown. With the suspected assistance of George Speke, John was compelled to escape back to the manor at Lytchett while it was still under surveillance by law officers. His servants then made arrangements to get him aboard a ship berthed at Weymouth. Trenchard then spent two years of exile in Holland; George Speke also fled the country. (Visit Archived Articles Section and click on ‘The Monmouth Rebellion’ Pub.August 2002. Ed.)

Meanwhile Hugh Speke, by then John’s brother-in-law, had been jailed for writing anti-Stuart pamphlets. Officers of the King also raided the Speke home and arrested Hugh’s brother Charles, who was summarily executed by hanging from a tree in Illminster market place. The King’s officers were in no doubt about where the family’s loyalties lay. During a tour by Monmouth of the West Country in 1681, George Speke had entertained the Duke and pledged his support for any future claim to the throne the Duke may assert.

During his two years of exile in the Netherlands Trenchard had made the acquaintance of William of Orange, the Protestant son-in-law of James II. It is believed that on his release from prison, Hugh also fled to Holland. However, in 1686 a general amnesty was issued for the exiles, largely brought about by the intervention of the Quaker William Penn, though Trenchard himself was not pardoned. Yet by the end of 1687 he was back in Dorset, probably as a consequence of offering service to the King in return for his liberty.

With the immediate danger over, Trenchard was able by 1688 to resume his parliamentary career. That year he was elected to represent Dorchester as the leading Whig (i.e. the gentry-party opposed to the Tories of the Court). In this capacity he made an unsuccessful bid to persuade King James II to tone-down his pro-catholic sympathies for the sake of the country’s peace. But the birth of a son to James that year threatened a papal succession once again. The Whigs and Tories united to invite William and Mary to claim the throne. Trenchard of course easily slipped into favour with the royal couple, although he took no active part in the revolution, which ousted James.

John Trenchard was knighted in 1689 and made Chief Justice of Chester. The following year he was elected member for Poole and appointed Secretary of State in 1692. In this capacity he adopted a distinctly draconian approach to the country’s security, setting up an elaborate spy network to oversee the exiled King James, then under the protection of Louis XIV. In the archives of the Bastille were letters revealing that Trenchard had very high level contacts in the French Court and that he had spies in the French channel ports who relayed information from French naval officers.

At home Trenchard was no less zealous in his anti-papal purges. He courted great unpopularity by persecuting those he thought to hold Jacobite sympathies and freely issued search warrants for their homes. Once, when on the trail of a bogus plot perpetuated by one Francis Taffe, Trenchard was much reviled for his gullibility, though he was a man impervious to criticism.

By spring 1695 Sir John Trenchard was in poor-health, and by the end of April he was dead. He was just 46 years old. Phillipa however was not widowed for long, marrying soon after a merchant named Daniel Sadler and living for almost another 50 years. By Phillipa, Trenchard had seven children. His three daughters, Elizabeth, Mary and Anne all married well, though only one of his four sons survived to adulthood.

It should be noted that there were John and Thomas Trenchards in two other possible branches of the family, which could lead to considerable confusion about who is meant. For example there was also a John Trenchard of Warmwell (1586-1662), and a literary John Trenchard (1662-1723), the author of ‘A Short History of Standing Arms in England’ (1698 & 1731) and ‘The Natural History of Superstition’ (1709).

Footnote:
Thomas Gerard in his book Coker’s Survey of Dorestshire (1732) wrote: “Bradford Peverll. The Seate for a longe time of the antient Familie of Peverells whose estate about Henry the Eighth’s time fell by a Female Heire to Nicholas Meggs and his Posteritie enjoy it. Neare Bradford the River dividing itself, making an Island of manie faire and fruitful Maedowes, and there joineth againe a little belowe Dorchester, the more northern branch, being the lesser, amongst these Maedoes runneth by Wolton, more trulie Wolvehampton, a fine and rich Seate which (by the daughter and Heire of John Jordan the antient owner of it) came to John Mohune. His only daughter and Heire Alice brought a faire Estate unto her husband Henry Trinchard of Hampshire whose Grandchilde Sir Thomas Trinchard, gracious with King Henry the Eighth was called chief Builder of the Habitation of Sir George Trinchard, a Man of Great Courage.” (See our article: ‘ Thomas Gerard of Trent’ Published 17th July 2011, in the Trent category.)