Dothill meets Downing Street: The Story of Sir George Downing

The keys to 10 Downing Street - that most famous of front doors - represent the keys to political power in Britain, and have done ever since first lords of the treasury (the post synonymous with that of prime minister) first took residence there over 200 years ago. That this iconic seat of power should have connections with a great seat of learning – Downing College, Cambridge – might not be surprising. Perhaps more surprising is that this connection should come via the Wellington suburb of Dothill. At the centre of this story is Sir George Downing, third baronet, but before we meet him, let’s spend a few moments with his grandfather…

Family fortunes
Downing Street was named after Sir George Downing, first baronet, who had it built in the 1680s. His portrait still hangs just inside the lobby of Number 10. Born in Ireland and educated at the fledging Harvard University in the American colonies, Downing’s life was far from dull. He was a soldier and diplomat under both Oliver Cromwell and the restored Charles II, and by the time of his retirement was an aristocrat grown wealthy on property. Diarist Samuel Pepys wasn’t very impressed with him, however, and described him as a ‘perfidious rogue’. And a few centuries later, Winston Churchill showed similar distain when he reflected on the shoddy walls in his prime ministerial home, grumbling that Downing must have been a ‘profiteering contractor’.
But what does all this have to do with Dothill? Well, the year after the Sir George Downing died in 1684, his daughter in law gave birth to his grandson, also to be called George. Another three years later, she too was dead and the infant George was packed off by his widower father to live with his uncle and aunt, Sir William Forester and Lady Mary, at Dothill Hall near Wellington – where my old primary school now stands.

An early life at Dothill
The Foresters, descendants of The Wrekin’s medieval caretakers, had inherited Dothill just a decade earlier from their relatives the Steventons, having spent the previous two hundred years at the Old Hall on Watling Street. Sir William was the Member of Parliament for Wenlock and a keen Whig politician who was involved in the movement to exclude the Catholic James II from the throne. Reportedly caught at one stage with a stockpile of weapons at his house, he was heavily fined and had to cut down all his timber on The Wrekin to pay for it. Then in 1688, about a year into young George’s time at Dothill, Sir William finally found himself on the winning team as James II was ousted and the Protestant William and Mary invited to England to take the throne.

We don’t know anything about young George’s childhood at Dothill. Perhaps he spent his days indoors being studious, perhaps he spent them playing in the fields around Shawbirch and Admaston. Was he spoilt? Was he treated like a son and a brother by his uncle’s family? What we do know is that Sir William took advantage of his young charge, presumably with the Downing family wealth in mind, when he secretly married the 15 year-old George to his own even younger daughter, Catherine. Unsurprisingly, the boy wasn’t very happy about this forced union. Still only a teenager, he upped sticks and left Wellington – and indeed England – soon after. Exactly what he got up to while he was away we don’t know, but when he returned home about three years later, he refused to acknowledge Catherine as his wife and they never lived together again.

An undistinguished life in politics
In 1710, George Downing began a political career when he became MP for Dunwich in Suffolk. Dunwich was a ‘pocket borough’ – a constituency with a small enough electorate to be under the effective control (or in the pocket) of one major landowner. This was a time before secret ballots, so it was a brave tenant who stood up and voted against his landlord! Whatever you think about the dodgy dealings in modern British politics, remember it’s positively angelic compared to the 18th century.

George and his Uncle William Forester had, presumably, fallen out over the arranged marriage and his subsequent disappearance – George and Catherine secured a separation, but were never granted a full divorce. So, it’s tempting to picture the scene in 1710 as Downing arrived for his first day at the House of Commons, his Uncle William, still the Member for Wenlock, sitting somewhere nearby in the Chamber. Did they exchange glances I wonder, or a few words of greeting?

Whilst briefly out of politics between 1715 and 1722, a 99-year lease on Dunwich (courtesy of The Crown) meant that Downing went on to occupy the parliamentary seat in Suffolk for the rest of his life. It was an age of coteries and factions, rather than political parties, and Downing was a loyal but unremarkable supporter of Sir Robert Walpole – considered Britain’s first real ‘prime minister’ – and of his successor, Henry Pelham. His loyalty paid off when he was made a Knight of the Bath in 1732. A knight he may have been, but according to the Cambridge antiquary William Cole, ‘for the latter part of his life he led a most miserable, covetous and sordid existence’. Cole doesn’t give details, but knowing how many fine pubs and fine women there are in Cambridge, I can imagine he had a high time. He died at his home, Gamlingay Park in Cambridgeshire, in 1749.

A distinguished afterlife in Cambridge
It was, all said, not a distinguished life. In death, however, George Downing’s achievements were much more substantial. But it took a while. His vast wealth, inherited from the first Sir George (of Number 10 fame), was left to his cousin Jacob Garrard Downing and his male heirs. If there were no heirs to inherit, the trustees of the will were directed to purchase:

“some piece of ground lying and being in the town of Cambridge, proper and convenient for the erecting and building a college, which college shall be called by the name of Downing's College.”

When Downing’s will was approved in June 1749, its trustees were already dead. When cousin Jacob himself died in 1764, without children, and all other named relatives were also found to be deceased without male heirs, the august scholars of Cambridge University turned up to collect their winnings and build a new college. But the remaining Downing family fought tooth and nail to keep the old man’s money, and litigation at the Courts of Chancery slowed things down tremendously. It was a full half century after Downing’s death, in September 1800, when the charter for the founding of the new college at Cambridge was finally passed. Seven years later, once land had been purchased, the building of Downing College began.

Today, two centuries later, Downing College stands in glorious landscaped grounds off Regent Street near the centre of Cambridge, set around the largest quadrangle of any in the university. In a city of gnarled, gothic colleges, Downing’s clean, neo-classical lines stand out as refreshingly elegant. It’s a friendly college where academic standards are high, and where Law and Medicine are particularly strong. That it was founded at all was thanks to the poor longevity of Downing’s relatives, and in the first place thanks probably to the fact Downing had no legitimate children of his own – Uncle William’s enforced and failed marriage put pay to that. Were it not for his time at Dothill, therefore, its unlikely Downing College would ever have come into existence.
So, Sir George Downing the Third might not have made much mark on this earth whilst he was on it. But as John Cleese, Quentin Blake, Sir Trevor Nunn and the tens of thousands of other Downing students since 1807 might testify, he hasn’t done such a bad job since.

Acknowledgements: Our thanks to Dr Kate Thompson and Mr Richard Stibbs of Downing College, Cambridge, for their assistance in the researching of this article.