The Dunn and Jenkin families
The Dunn and the
Jenkin families lived for a long time in close
proximity.
See photos of Mylor and Baldhu
John Dunn
and his children
(additional information added in 2020 thanks to Sue
Etherington. (Her
complete Dunn family tree)
The traceable
story begins with Moses Dunn (birth place unknown) who
married Elizabeth Sara on 29 October 1764 at St.
Gluvias in Penryn. She was baptised at St.
Gluvias on 7 May 1743, the child of Stephen Sara and
Margaret Nicholas, who married 27 September 1740 at
St. Gluvias Penryn. Moses was buried on 28
September 1807 and Elizabeth was buried on 9 September
1825, both in Mylor. William Dunn, baptised at St.
Gluvias in Penryn on 25 December 1776, was their 5th
child of fourteen, of whom at least six didn’t survive
childhood.
William Dunn, by
now a “school master” and Grace (Elizabeth) Hitchens
were married on December 20,1808. Grace was baptized on 26 February 1777 in Mylor,
a village on a small creek opening onto Carrick Roads
at the mouth of the River Fal just beyond Restronguet
Creek and Feock. She was the daughter of John and
Elizabeth Hitchens, she died in 1845. Their son John
(Hitchens) Dunn was born in Mylor, the
Mylor parish baptismal records show that he was
baptized on October 2, 1814. There were other children born prior to
John Hitchens, Samuel was baptized in Mylor on 18
August 1811, buried in Mylor on 19 April 1819. A
daughter of "William Dunn school master," "Elizabeth,"
was married
in St. Gluyias aged 20 on August 15, 1840. She
might be the Grace Elizabeth Dunn born in Mylor in
1821. Grace Elizabeth
Dunn, baptized in Mylor on 25 March 1821, married
William Bennett on 15 August 1840 at St. Gluvias in
Penryn. He was 25, a farmer. William
Bennett was baptised on 29 May 1814 at St. Gluvias
Penryn, the son of Charles and Jane Bennett. His
father a wheelwright/carpenter. The burial of
William Bennett is recorded on 15 July 1841, at St.
Gluvias, aged 27. No children found. Can’t
work out what happened to his widow.
John
Dunn (the son of William and
Grace) presumably entered the coastguard service and
although his first recorded posting dates
from 1841, that is because the online list of
British coastguards
providing the information only begins from 1841, he
might have been a coast guard
before that date. That list shows
that John Dunn served from 1841 (when he was 26) at
Gurnard (Northwood) in the Isle of Wight; from 1851 at
Crimond, Aberdeenshire in Scotland; from 1861 in
Lilstock near Bridgewater in Somerset. The same web
page lists their children: John Henry (born 1848);
Bennet (1850), both born in Northwood, Isle of Wight;
then Elizabeth (1852); Sarah (1854); Ellen (1858) and
William (it says 1860, actually 1859) were born in
Scotland. Crimond (where he was officially stationed)
is a little to the north-east of
Aberdeen and Bridge of Don, where John Dunn and his
family were living in July 1859. The
birth certificate of his son William Bennett Dunn
reveals that John’s wife's
maiden name had been Bourn. She was born on 13 August
1819 in New Romney Kent, baptised in St.
Nicholas church, New Romney, on 10 September 1819, the
daughter of William and Sarah. William Bourn of New
Romney married Sarah Rowlatt on 22 February 1817 at
St. Leonard's church, Hythe, Kent).
At the 1841 Census he was
boarding alone, aged 25, with 2 other coast guards in
a farm cottage in the parish
of Northwood on the Isle of Wight. He married
Mary Ann Bourn in late 1842 in the Isle of Wight. The
earliest record of John Dunn as a married man is the
1851 Scottish Census, when he was already settled
(aged 36) in the Coast Guard Station at Crimond with
his wife Mary Ann (aged 31), their
first son John Henry (aged 3) and their second son
Benet (aged 1). They were married at some point
prior to 1848. During the following years their
other children were born. Adolphus Bennet Dunn was
born early in 1850 in Northwood, Isle of Wight, but
died early in 1852 in Sunderland, County Durham.
Elizabeth Ann was born in 1851. Sarah Dunn was born
in 1854, buried at Baldhu on 7 March 1869 aged 16.
Ellen Eliza was born in 1857. Finally, on
July 8, 1859, on a probably bright northern summer’s
evening, at around 8 pm, their last child, a son, was
born, to whom they gave the name William Bennett
Dunn, my great-grandfather. At
that moment they were living
in the coastguard station in Bridge of Don, a suburb
of Aberdeen, Scotland, located within the parish of
Old Machar. John Dunn reported the
birth to the Aberdeen Registrar a week later, on July
14, 1859. [Birth
certificate PDF file]
Hugus,1,
John Dunn, 57,
Farmer Of 7 Acres, born in Mylor Cornwall,
Mary Ann Dunn,
51, Farmers Wife, born in Romney Kent,
Elizabeth Ann
Dunn, 19, Farmers Daughter born in Scotland,
Ellen Dunn,
13, Farmers Daughter, born in Scotland,
None of the boys
was at home. John Dunn now
set about marrying off his
children. The first to go was Elizabeth Ann who,
early in 1878, married the son of a Baldhu
farmer. By the time of the 1891 Census, they were well
established: in that 1891 listing
we find James Collins, (39), farmer, born in
Kea, Cornwall whose wife, Elizabeth A. Collins
(39), the Census entry says, was born in Scotland.
They had 2 sons living with them: William J
Collins, (16, Blacksmith Apprentice, born in Kea,
Cornwall to James Collins's first wife, Rebecca,
who was buried the following year) and John H.
Collins, (8, Scholar) born in Kenwyn Cornwall,
they also had a daughter, Sarah
Jane Collins, aged 12 who was
staying with her grandmother on the day of the
census.
In mid-1880, Ellen married
William Carbis, a tin and copper miner from
Baldhu. (See below)
Late in 1880, John Henry Dunn
was married in Mylor to a woman named Mary Ann
Tregenza, born in Mylor. (See below)
Finally, William
Bennett Dunn, "mariner," was married by the
Vicar, John Symonds, in Baldhu parish church on August
31, 1881 with Mary Elizabeth Jenkin,
who was born in Kea (i.e. Baldhu) in the same year as
her husband, 1859. They were
my great-grandparents. The witnesses were James
Collins and Ellen Eliza Carbis.
The Jenkin family
The Jenkin
family had already been
living in Baldhu at the time of
the 1861 Census, when Baldhu was a
significant region for mining, centred on the Wheal
Jane mines. (These began to collapse in 1885 and Wheal
Jane finally closed in 1895). It is significant that
in 1861 a boy of 10 was already working at the mine. Neither of the Jenkin parents was
born in Baldhu, however. William Jenkin and Harriet
Jeffery were married in Kea on 2 October 1841.
William's father was John Jenkin. Both were then
living at 'Kirley' (Kerley Downs, Baldhu /
Chacewater). There is no record of a William Jenkin
being baptized in Kenwyn, however. A William son of
John and Mary was baptized 12 April 1818 at Gwennap.
Harriet Jeffery was baptized in Gwennap on 13 March
1822. William Jenkin was buried at Baldhu on 25
November 1887. Harriet was buried in Baldhu 26
November 1896. Her family is probably this in the 1841
Census:
Skits Coomb,1,Joseph Jeffery,50,,Copper Miner,In
county,
,,Mary Jeffery,,46,,In county,
,,Catherine Jeffery,,20,,In county,
,,Harriet Jeffery,,18,,In county,
,,Stephen Jeffery,16,,,In county,
,,Mary Jeffery,,14,,In county,
,,Benjamin Jeffery,12,,,In county,
,,William Jeffery,11,,,In county,
,,Josiah Jeffery,9,,,In county,
,,Henry Jeffery,7,,,In county,
,,Eliza Jeffery,,5,,In county,
,,Harriet Jenkin,Wife,M,,27,,Kenwyn Cornwall,,
,,William Jenkin,Son,U,9,,Tin Miner,Gwennap
Cornwall,,
,,Joseph Jenkin,Son,U,8,,Scholar,Kea Cornwall,,
,,Eliza Jane Jenkin,Dau,U,,4,,Kea Cornwall,,
,,Harriet Hannah Jenkin,Dau,U,,2,,Kea Cornwall,,
,,John Jenkin,Son,U,1m,,,Kea Cornwall,,
At the 1861 Census:
Saveock Water,
1,
William Jenkin,
46 (born in c1815), Copper & Tin Miner, born in
Kenwyn Cornwall,
Harriet Jenkin,
39 (born in c1822), born in Gwennap Cornwall,
William Jenkin,
19, Copper & Tin Miner,
born
in Kea Cornwall,
Joseph Jenkin,
16, Copper & Tin Miner,
born
in Kea Cornwall, (baptized at Chacewater 28 October
1850)
Eliza Jane
Jenkin, 14, Copper & Tin Mine Girl, born in Kea Cornwall, (baptized at Kea 21
July 1846)
Harriet Ann
Jenkin, 12, Copper & Tin Mine Girl, born in Kea Cornwall, (baptized at Baldhu
8 April 1849)
John Jenkin, 10,
Copper & Tin Miner, born in Kea
Cornwall, (baptized at Baldhu 5 August 1850)
Alfred Jenkin,
8, Scholar, born in Kea
Cornwall,
Mary
Elizabeth Jenkin, 1, born in Kea
Cornwall, (baptized at Baldhu 13 March 1873) my
great-grandmother
By
the 1871 Census, 2 more children had been
born:
William Jenkin,Head,M,55,,Miner,Kenwyn Cornwall,,
Harriet Jenkin,Wife,M,,49,Miner's Wife,Kea Cornwall,,
Alfred Jenkin,Son,U,18,,Miner's Son,Kea Cornwall,,
Mary Elizabeth
Jenkin,Dau,,,11,Scholar,Kea Cornwall,,
Emily Jenkin, 8, Scholar, born in Kea Cornwall,
(baptized at Baldhu 13 March 1873)
Laura Jenkin, 5,
Scholar, born in Kea Cornwall, (baptized at Baldhu 13
March 1873, she was actually the daughter of Eliza
Jane Jenkin, 'illegitimate'). There is no indication
of who her father was. Laura married Hubert John
Nosworthy in Alphington in Exeter in 1891 and had 5
children. They lived in Exmouth Devon. Laura died 26
Jan 1943. At the 1871 Census, Laura's mother Eliza
Jane was living at High Cross, Truro, as the cook for
Rev. Henry B Bullocke, the Rector of (St. Mary's)
Truro. She married William Belworthy in 1876 in St
Thomas Exeter, they had 6 children.
Laura Jenkins with her family. Left to Right: Albert,
Hubert John NOSWORTHY, Lily Agnes, Laura, Ivy,
Wilfred, Gladys
In the 1881
Census, William Jenkin is now listed as being
65, a “former” miner, while the only child still
living at home is Mary Elizabeth, who is 21
and working as a Board School Teacher. She was about
to marry William Bennett Dunn, my great-grandfather.
In view of the teaching career chosen by her children
Owen and Ellen, this is significant. In a family
entirely dominated by the harsh life of mining, one
daughter was able to receive an education then become
a teacher. The books she accumulated during her life,
that I saw in their home in Grampound, suggest that
she was a rather religious woman with some interest in
the Second Coming. But she also liked history and had
a copy of The
Last Days of Pompeii by Bulwer Lytton.
At the 1881 Census, the
last-born Jenkin daughter (in fact Eliza Jane's
illegitimate child), Laura Jenkin, aged 15, was working as a servant in the
home of John Dunn, her sister's
father-in-law, who now has
a grocer’s shop in the village. Staying with John Dunn
is his daughter Ellen Carbis, who has just had a baby:
[Address: Hugus 1]
John Dunn, 66,
Greenwich Pensioner, Grocer, born in Mylor Cornwall,
Maryann Dunn,
61, born in Romney Kent,
Ellen Eliza
Carbis, (married) 23, Grocers Assistant, born in
Scotland,
Florence Mary
Carbis, Grandaughter 7m, born in Kea Cornwall,
Laura Jenkin,
Servant, 15, General Servant Domestic, born in Kenwyn
Cornwall,
At the 1891 Census, Harriet was living in the
Dunn household, her husband having died in 1887:
17,,1,Mary E Dunn,Head,M,,31,,,Kea Cornwall,,
,,,Asinoth H Dunn,Dau,,,6,Scholar,,Kea Cornwall,,
,,,Adolphus B Dunn,Son,,5,,Scholar,,Kea Cornwall,,
,,,Owen H B Dunn,Son,,6m,,,,Kea Cornwall,,
,,,Harriet Jenkin,Mother,W,,69,,,Gwennap Cornwall,,
The absent husband of John Dunn's
daughter Ellen Carbis was William Carbis.
Alas, tragedy struck, William
Carbis contracted TB, took the boat for home
alone, hoping the sea air would cure him, and died
(see below) in his parents' home in Chacewater
parish on November 11, 1891, aged 38.
In the 1891 Census
report for the parish of Kea, William Bennett Dunn’s
wife, Mary E. Dunn (31), was
living in Baldhu,
acting as family head in the absence of her husband. Together
with her she had 3 of their children: “Asineth F E
Dunn, Daughter, 6, Scholar; Adolphus B Dunn,
Son, 5, Scholar; Owen H(enry) B(ennett) Dunn, Son, 6
months;” and also living in the same house was Harriet
Jenkin, Mother (of Mary Elizabeth), Widow, 69, born at
Gwennap, Cornwall. The daughter here named Asineth F E
was born in September 1884 and at birth her name was
registered as Arsenath Frances E(llen); she was my
grandmother. The strange first name comes from Genesis
41:45 where Pharaoh gives Asenath, the daughter of the
priest Potipherah, to Joseph to be his wife. For most
of her life she was always referred to as “Ellen” or,
more usually, “Nell.”
John
Dunn had died of a stomach cancer on
3 September 1888, attended by William
Benett's wife and in the 1891 Census we find, living in the house in
Baldhu next to William Bennett's family, his widow,
Mary Ann Dunn, 71, and Sarah Jane Collins, her
Grandaughter, 12, Scholar, who was born in Kea
Cornwall. Mary Ann Dunn died aged 84 in December 1903.
In the Census
reports for both 1891 and 1901, after John
Dunn had died, we find living at Hugus and working in
his place as a grocer John H. Dunn (52 in
1901), John Dunn's first child, born at Ryde on the
Isle of Wight in 1848, his wife Mary A Dunn aged 50,
born in Mylor, and their son William B. Dunn age 18,
born in Mylor and also working as a grocer. This
latter was still alive in my childhood, known as "Will
Dunn" and living in a house at the foot of the hill on
which Devoran stands. Ruby would take me to visit him.
John Henry Dunn and his wife Mary
Ann (both aged 33) were living at Mylor Bridge at the
1881 Census, in the house of Amelia Tregenza
(60, unmarried), listed as her nephew and niece.
John's occupation then was "ship carpenter" and his
wife's "Grocer." Amelia's father had been Thomas
Tregenza, a Mylor-born farmer who was already 79 in
the 1871 Census. Mary Ann Tregenza, born October 16,
1844, was the daughter of the farmer Thomas Tregenza
who was 52 at the 1871 Census and his wife Mary A
Tregenza. This Thomas would have been Amelia's
brother, son of the elder Thomas. Tregenza was a very
common Mylor name at that time.
William Bennett
Dunn was not at home for the 1891
Census. He had returned home by the 1901
Census. On the 1901 Census day, March 31, he
was living with his family in 3 Montpellier Terrace,
Antony, Torpoint, on the Cornish shore of the River
Tamar. They had several more children by then: the
Census list mentions Ellen (16), Adolphus (15), Owen
(10), Ruby (7), and William L(eo) (3). Owen was born
at Kea in December 1890, and with the exception of
Leo, all the children were born in Kea (near Truro),
the birthplace of their mother. Leo was born at
Torpoint. William Bennett Dunn’s job is here listed as
“Shipwright.”
At the birth of Ruby, who was born on January
6, 1894, and was registered as “Ruby Jenkin Dunn,” a
snippet from the births column of a local paper
available online gives the following information: “At
Belmont Villas, Baldhu, Jan. 6, the wife of William
Bennett Dunn, CM. (H.M.S. Defiance,
Devonport), of a daughter (Ruby).” Now H.M.S. Defiance
(built 1861) was the last wooden line-of-battle ship
launched for the Royal Navy. She never saw service as
a fighting ship. On 26 November, 1884 Defiance
became the Devonport torpedo and mining schoolship.
William
Bennett Dunn's full naval record is outlined
on a separate page.
The move to Grampound
Some time before the 1911 Census, probably soon
after William Bennett's
retirement from naval service in 1905, the Dunn family
had moved to their final abode, taking charge of the
Hollies Stores in Grampound. This grocery store was,
and still is, located in a ground-floor room of a
house belonging (in my childhood at least) to the
Croggan family, who were the ancient “squires” of
Grampound although their own house, standing next door
and joined to it, was hardly majestic. The Croggans
also owned another house, “Hillside,” evidently rather
larger, since it is distinguished by its name, a
little further up the hill. There can be no knowing
what brought the Dunn family to this particular
village, although the fact that John Dunn had opened a
grocery store in Baldhu is suggestive.
From the 1911 Census, we learn that William
Bennett was now a “Naval Pensioner.” Listed as living
with them on April 2, 1911, were Frances E(llen) (25)
now a School Mistress, Ruby (17), already “assisting
in the business” and William L(eo) (13) who was still
at school. Frances Ellen, my
grandmother, was at that moment preparing to marry
Fred Teague and leave Grampound for Cirencester a few months later.
Ruby
was to remain in the house in Grampound, unmarried,
running the store until she retired to live near us in
Truro in about 1960. At the start of the War in 1939
she bought in exotic foodstuffs (I have no idea what)
from places that she reckoned would soon be occupied
and inaccessible. There were still cans of beef stew
she opened for me in the early 1950s, an unimaginable
luxury at that time. So she made a certain amount of
money, with customers in the know coming from far
away. This money was not declared for taxes or banked,
instead it was converted into gold sovereigns and
banknotes that were hidden up bedroom chimneys. On
retiring she bought a new house just up the road from
us in Truro, and went on quite a number of cruises
with the money she had saved. Once, perhaps in about
1952, she asked my father to deposit 150 pounds of her
money at the bank for some years, allowing him to keep
the interest. In those days even that was a
considerable help. We were poor, living from month to
month with nothing in reserve.
Leo
moved a couple of hundred yards down the hill in
Grampound and built himself a simple house on waste
land beside the bridge over the stream, with a few
hand-cranked petrol pumps and a car-repair workshop
opening onto the road. The stream in those times ran
white from the china-clay workings further up. He
filled the garden with dahlias, large and small,
became a dahlia expert, and developed some new
varieties. He married Evelyn Johns in 1928; they had
no children.
Owen, like his sister, attended teaching
college (in Exeter?) and became headmaster of the
Primary school in St. Stephen in Brannell not far from
Grampound. He married Florence Violet Holliday (Vi) (her gravestone) on 09 Nov
1919. Their sons were Stanley and Bernard Dunn.
Adolphus
Bennet (“Dolf”) first married Daisy Alice Holliday in
London in 1910 but she died in 1915, he
remarried Dorcas Louisa Brenton in 1925, then he died
(gravestone), still
young, in 1930; his son
John Williams (Jack) (born July 10, 1911) grew up in
London but ended up living in St Stephen, working as a
hairdresser and active as churchwarden. His daughter
Anne was only a few years older than myself, we were
the only children at the winter family parties in
Ruby’s or Leo’s homes; on marrying she lived for a
time not far from us in Truro and I used to visit.
The house in which the Dunns lived in Grampound
had two large rooms fronting onto the street, that to
the left being the shop and that on the right the
dining room (more recently the post-office), which
housed a bookshelf holding books which seem mostly to
have been bought and read by Mrs. Dunn. Further in, to
the right of the stairs was the kitchen and to the
left the bathroom / toilet. Upstairs there were two
small bedrooms, one in the back and one in the front,
between the main bedroom above the dining room and the
family parlor. The parlor was the room above the shop,
made larger by extending over the passage-way which
gave access to the garden from the street. The parlor
held the piano, cabinets with curios from William
Bennett’s travels, which seem to have included
Palestine and China, ornaments, and a large
oil-painting of a mysterious lady who always seemed to
be staring at you. It was in this parlor, with its
fireplace, sofa and armchairs, that family parties
were still held during my childhood. Behind the house
was a huge garden-orchard, with several outbuildings
including a great laundry room with a copper for
boiling linen, as well as two earth-closets.
The life and death of
William Carbis
The Australian career and early death of William
Carbis junior are explained by an
obituary
printed on page 13 of the Northern Mining
Register dated Wednesday 18 November,
1891:
It is with
regret that we have to record the fact of the
decease of Mr William Carbis, the sad event having
taken place late last week, at his parent's
residence, near Chacewater, Cornwall. Mr. Carbis
was, until declining health caused him to resign the
appointment, the manager of the Mills' United Gold
Mines. He had previously held the position of
manager in other mines on the goldfield, and had
also carried through many large contracts. In all
his business relations he held the entire confidence
of the directors of the companies he represented,
and was popular with the miners under his control.
When Mr Carbis left Charters Towers some months ago,
in order to try the effect of a sea voyage; his
intention was to return, so his wife and children
remained here. His complaint, however, consumption,
being in no wise abated, he wrote for his family to
join him, and they accordingly left here about a
fortnight ago, and. are passengers by the Orizaba.
Poor Carbis had a host of friends, who lament his
loss, and deeply sympathise with his widow in her
sad bereavement.
The
Northern Mining Register
was the weekly edition of the daily Northern
Miner, published in Charters Towers,
Northern Queensland. There is a photo on that
Wikipedia page of the mines in 1890.