A Damerham Family

spellings.) Only the Ambrose family was more a son of the family visited Damerham, married marriage to Anne Sansom, a Rockbourne girl, Liberalism, and this tradition survived into the A DAMERHAM prolific. These families together made up and decided to settle here. We shall probably in 1801. He may well have been serving an 1960s. I well recall my father, George Ephraim FAMILY - THE possibly a quarter of the population of the never know for certain. apprenticeship with a relative at the time, and (born 1907) deep in very civilised political village. Other families strongly represented in this seems to reinforce the Wiltshire connection. controversy with Major Peter Woolley, our However, we can be sure that by the middle of COLBOURNES. the mid 19th century included the Marvels, after neighbour and local Conservative agent. the 18th century, the Colbournes had settled in Surprisingly, at a time when Damerham would whom Marvels Plot in the High Street is named, Among a people who still held the Duke of C the village and within a hundred years had have been largely controlled by the Cootes, the the Beachs, Vincents, and Blakes. However, Monmouth in affection, this was not surprising. become one of the leading families. The Colbournes, a family largely of agricultural GRAHAM COLBOURNE not all of the longstanding families have earliest substantiated reference to the family labourers and small tradesmen, held property James Colbourne died in 1887, but was disappeared. The Tillers and Jerrards are comes with the marriage of William Colbourne some of which was let. James (born 1813) was predeceased by his eldest son, Ephraim. It was examples of those showing greater powers of to Mary Oates in 1775. William was probably certainly an owner occupier and landlord, and traditional that the eldest sons of the family "And yet time hath his revolution: there survival. born in 1750, the son of Thomas Colbourne and Thomas (born 1778) left property to his sons should include in their names either James or must be an end to all temporal things, an A few years ago, I was approached by Mrs. Mary Grey, but the connection is unproved. John and Phillip on his death in 1856. It was Ephraim. Thankfully, my mother put an end to end to names and dignities. Where is Brenda Sherwood (nee Colbourne) who lives commonly said by older members of the family this! My grandfather (born 1871) was the son Bohun, where`s Mobray, where`s Up to the middle of the 20th century the family near Portsmouth. She was researching the that there were Colbournes of considerable of Ephraim, and naturally was named James. remained relatively strong in the village. The Mortimer? Nay, which is more and most of history of the Colbourne side of her family and wealth in this period. One is said to have had He was the youngest of four children, and the majority of family members in the middle years all, where is Plantaganet? They are asked for my help with the Damerham branch. sufficient gold sovereigns to cover his kitchen only boy. Two of his sisters left the village. of the present century were descendants of entombed in the urns and sepulchres of From here I obtained very useful information table, but regrettably for his descendants, he lost Emma married a member of another old James Colbourne, who was born in 1813. By These words of Sir Randulphe establishing that members of the Colbourne his fortune in drinking and gambling. There Damerham family, the Blakes, and moved to mortality". all accounts James was the dominant member of family had been present in Damerham since the were also some scoundrels. One member of the Ide, a village near Exeter. The reason is not Crewe, a 17th century judge, describing the the family through the 19th century, and his line mid-18th century, and probably much earlier. family, possibly Phillip, aware that hens were clear, but there may well have been a family demise of England`s leading families in the remained in Damerham well after the majority For my part, I was able to help her with some fetching more than cockerels at market, connection. Mrs. Sherwood has found that a carnage of the Wars of the Roses, could equally of the descendants of his seven brothers and anecdotal evidence passed down from older trimmed a cock bird`s comb and placed an egg Thomas Colbourne was buried at Ide in 1684, describe what has happened to many rural sisters had gone. His photograph, taken late in members of the family. Some of this may be in its pen to try to fool buyers. but this may merely be a coincidence. communities, including Damerham, during the life, shows a typical Victorian, reminiscent of merely tradition or legend, but much probably past century. an Old Testament patriarch, complete with large It is clear that in the mid-19th century, the Scandal surrounded another sister, Bessie, who contains at least a grain of truth. Whatever the To appreciate what has occurred, simply white beard. family had strong nonconformist connections. eloped with a coachman called Wood and went case, it often makes a good story. The Will of Thomas witnessed by the Rev. to live in Lanark in Scotland. Many years later, substitute for the illustrious families mentioned, James was the local butcher and lived at It seems that the Colbournes are an old William Rhodes, the Baptist minister, and her son Tom Wood appeared in Damerham the rather humbler names of Ambrose, Marvel, Crossways where the large Edwardian house Wiltshire family. Damerham was, of course, James, was almost certainly closely associated much to the family`s surprise and consternation. Beach and Colbourne, all of whom, so now stands. It is said that each Christmas he part of Wiltshire until 1895. Brenda Sherwood with the Methodists. In the 1870s, James, His accent was virtually unintelligible, but my prominent in the 19th century, have now all but supplied and roasted an ox on the verge outside has traced her branch of the family back to knowing that the Methodists were looking to father declared him a true Colbourne. disappeared from the village scene. his house for the poor of the village, although 1533, with the birth of one Robert Colbourne at move from their chapel at Mill End, exchanged The 1851 census record shows there were at by the 1881 census he seems to have diversified Over the years, the leading families appear to Lacock, the site of the famous abbey and home land which he held in the High Street for the that time forty-nine members of the Colbourne and become a General Dealer. James`s uncle have sought dynastic alliances within the parish of the pioneer of photography, Fox-Talbot. building, which he converted to a dwelling- family living in Damerham (the name may be Thomas was the local grocer in the first half of through marriage. The Colbournes are no Members of the family appear to have migrated house. The Wesleyan and Primitive Methodists spelt in any number of ways. Colborne, the 19th century so between them the exception in having blood ties with many of the south during the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, were both represented in the parish, the Coberne, Colburn, were common, but all were Colbournes appear to have cornered the market well known Damerham families, past and drawn mainly by the seaports of Portsmouth Wesleyans at Crendell and the `Prims` after from the same family. The census takers, in the provisions trade. Recent research shows present. One of the more exotic characters to and Poole. The family is now well established 1870, in the High Street. In those days having to rely on verbal information from that Thomas was living in the Chippenham area add to the gene pool appears to have been in both towns. It may be that en route to Poole nonconformity ran hand in hand with radical largely illiterate people made up their own at the time of the calling of his banns of William Napoleon Vincent, known as Billy. He Damerham Domesday Book 2000 was probably born at the time of the Crimean My father, George, who had married in 1942, from his boiled sweet jars. These jars served a Hooper residence, was built by Mr. Nelson when the Rev. Arthur Phillips was incumbent, War (1855) when the French Emperor departed for active service in France, Belgium dual purpose when empty. Grandmother used Bush, who was married to a cousin of my and his widow lived in West Park Lane until Napoleon III was popular in England. His and Holland; his brother Eric was posted to them to make butter. She seemed to sit for father. My father personally made the bricks, she was over 100 years old. antecedents are shrouded in mystery. My father Gibraltar, and his sister Nellie served as a nurse hours rocking the jar until the cream formed a since he was working at Reads of Sandleheath School in those days meant hard work, but the rather disparagingly referred to him as the man in Durban, South Africa. After the war, only pat of butter. at the time. Shortly after, his brother Ralph had more trivial things come more readily to mind. with "neither beginning nor ending of days" - a Nellie and Ralph remained at "Resthaven". a new house erected on the adjoining plot. Shortly after the War my father kept a Jersey A serious controversy broke out on one reference to the Old Testament character My father had acquired a cottage and land in the cow which provided some milk; but our For many village families like the Colbournes, occasion over the relative merits of the Fordson Melchisedec.

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