A Record of the Family of Debenham of Suffolk
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A RECORD OF THE FAMILY OF DEBENHAM OF SUFFOLK COMPILED BY WALTER DEBENHAM SWEETING M,A. PRINTED FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION BY THE ST. CATHERINE PRESS LTD, 8, YORK BUILDINGS ADELPHI THE FAMILY OF DEBENHAM OF SUFFOLK ILLUSTRATIONS Bookplate of Frank Debenham, J.P. See p. 91. Frontispiece Arms of Debenham of Wenham . I Alpheton Church . 6 Many Tombstones of Debenhams remain south-east of the Porch. Alpheton Church and Hall . 8 Robert Debenham, 1789-1866 18 William Debenham, 1794-1863 23 Ernest Ridley Debenham, M.A. 24 Walter Debenham Sweeting, M.A. 30 Compiler of this Record. Arms of Brewse impaling Debenham . 40 Arms of Brewse and Debenham, quarterly, impaling Scrope and Tiptoft, quarterly . 44 Monument to Gilbert Debenham . 62 Shield with six quarterings, Brewse, Debenham, and others. 6 5 Wenham Hall . 66 Ancient seat of the Debenhams. See pp. 37, 38. Robert Debenham, 1755-1818 . 78 See p. 18. West Door of Copdock Church. 8 7 Arms of Debenham above the Door to the north. The second shield cannot be distinguished. The third seems to be Scrope. Frank Debenham, J.P. 91 ADDENDA p. 12. Francis Stanhope Hanson, Alderman and Sherift of the City of London, was created Knight, 22 July, 1909. pp. 30-31. Henry Ravenhill Sweeting m. 21 Aug., 1909, Louise Eleanor Matterson, eldest dau. of the late Thomas Henry Matterson. p. 31. Herbert Waller Sweeting m. 7 Aug., 1909, Mabel Heath Robinson, 3rd dau. of Rev. Francis Watson Robinson, M.A., Rector of Paston, co. Northants. p. 31. Jesse and Mary Monk have a second son, Eric William Waller Monk, b. 16 June, 1909. p. 32. Douglas Habgood Barnes was born 3 1 Mar. (not. 30 Mar.) 1909. p. 8 7. The view of the West Door of Copdock Church is given at p. 87, not as the frontispiece. THE DEBENHAM FAMILY OF SUFFOLK The Debenham family has been settled in Suffolk for centuries. The name is derived from the town of Debenham, a small place with a diminishing popul ation, in the Hundred of Threadling, about 8 3 miles from London. It used to be a market-town, and the market-house is a quaint and THE ARMS oF DEBENHAM, interesting structure ; but oF WENHAM, the market itself is little more than a name. In r 8 3 I the inhabitants num bered r 5 3 5 : at the census in r 90 r the number was 1219. The town is built upon the side of a hill near the source of the river Dehen ; so that its name explains itself, the Home, or Settlement, on the Deben. This river flows on to Woodbridge, where it widens into an estuary of considerable breadth, extending for eight or nine miles, ultimately falling into the sea a little north of Felixstowe. Although very far from being a celebrated stream, the Deben has many charms of its own. The follow- I 2 THE DEBENHAM FAMILY ing extract from J. J. Hissey's "Tour in a Phaeton through the Eastern Counties," published in 1889, will shew that it has many attractions for the visitor. " A very picturesque and pleasant river in truth is the Deben, though it cannot boast upon its side of any ruined abbey, or crumbling castle, or stately home, or any famous town ; and though the very name of it, I make bold to say, is known but to few Englishmen living out of Suffolk, still it is a charming stream. Perhaps it is even the more charming for the absence of these things ; its gentle windings and quiet fl.ow are best suited to the home-like scenery through which it runs its uneventful course. " A little more appreciative notice of the houses on its banks is to be found in Dr. Raven's " History of Suffolk," 1907, in these words:- " The Deben claims a higher importance" [than the Alde] " giving its name to the little town which stands near its source, as we find elsewhere. It flows by stately homes and pretty houses, Brandeston and Hoo, Letherington~ once the seat of the Wingfields, the ducal hall at Easton, Glevering and Ufford, past Woodbridge town. On the right bank enter two small tributaries joined in one, from Clopton and Ashbocking respectively. Then in a wider channel it splits the heath-covered shingly soil, and forms a little haven between Bawdsey and Felixstowe. " Its merits have also been proclaimed in verse. The sonnet, " To the Deben, " from the poems of a local poet now long forgotten, Bernard Barton, printed in 1820, is given here,. not because of its intrinsic merit, but as evidence that the quiet beauties of the river appeal strongly to the genuine lover of Nature. THE DEBENHAM FAMILY 3 SONNET TO THE DEBEN, 1 Thou windest not through scenery which enchants The gazer's eye with much of grand or fair ; Yet on thy margin many a wandering pair Have found that peaceful pleasure nature grants To those who seek her in her humbler haunts, And love and prize them, because she is there : May I then, now the setting sunbeam slants Upon thy bosom, in those pleasures share ? Thanks unto Nature, she hath left me yet Some of those better feelings which were born In childhood : may their influence never set ; But may it be as gradually withdrawn, As yon sun's beams from thee; chidingregret By the bright promise of a cloudless morn. The origin of surnames is a very large subject. Many are derived from personal characteristics, or even deformities ; many are patronymics ; many from the occupation of the man who first lifted his head above the crowd ; many (as Debenham) from the place of birth or residence ; many from the situation of their dwellings ; many are tribal names of foreign settlers ; not a few come from some distinguished and notable exploit; some are, as it were, mere nicknames that have become permanent. Surnames, as we now understand them, are of comparatively recent introduction. Any person who has had occasion to study original documents of the fourteenth cen tury or earlier is well aware of this. It is true that soon after the Norman Conquest a beginning was made in the practice of appropriating a fixed surname to particular families, but the practice was by no means universally prevalent in England till 1 Poems, by Bernard Barton, London : 18zo. 4 THE DEBENHAM FAMILY centuries later. And it was later still before the modern rule of precise spelling of the surname became general. Oftentimes we find, in the same document, a variation in the spelling of a name ; and not seldom a man spelt his own name in different ways at dif ferent times. Instances of this variation, in the case of Debenham, will be found hereafter. It should be noted that in the case of surnames derived from places the earliest form expressed this by the prefix "de;" Lucas de Debenham, etc. In course of time this prefix was dropped. Also it is worth mentioning that in the place from which such a name is derived, the surnarp_e itself but seldom appears among the inhabitants. To the casual obser ver this seems very strange. In looking through the old registers at Debenham I never found the surname of Debenham, so spelt. It occurred more than once in a shortened form, as Debnam. The same thing was observable in my Northamptonshire parish of Maxey, where for twenty years I studied as exhaust ively as I could the history and antiquities of the place. I found many instances in the neighbourhood, and indeed all over England, of the surname Maxey, but never once did it occur in the place itself. The explanation of this, when once pointed out, carries conviction with it. As long as a man lived at Debenham he was known, not as Peter Debenham, but as Peter the Miller, or Peter Longshanks, or Peter son of Roger, or Peter at the Green, or Peter by the Stile, or Peter the Bachelor, or the like. When he moved elsewhere he became designated as the Peter from Debenham, de Debenham, and at last Debenham only. The family of Debenham spread into very many parishes of Suffolk, and indeed over the borders into THE DEBENHAM FAMILY 5 Norfolk and Essex. They were a prolific race. As is usual, and indeed inevitable, in large families with many branches, the social position of the members is of a most varied character. In this case, we find men of knightly position, lords ot manors, consider able landowners, substantial yeomen, as well as tenant farmers, small tradesmen, and labourers. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the family can claim Patrons of livings and many Rectors, a High Sheriff, a Member for the County, a Chancellor of Ireland, and others of distinction and celebrity. The notes that follow do not profess in any sense to supply a history _of the family. They are little more than a collection of facts and dates, with some record of occurrences in which some of its members took part. They have been gathered together from a large number of different sources, manuscript authorities as well as printed books : but, while it is assumed that all persons of the name belong to a com mon stock, it is absolutely hopeless to attempt to assign to each person his definite place in the geneal ogical tree. There are instances, too, in which the authorities are at variance ; and some in which there is found a confusion between two persons of the same Christian name ; and there are not a few other diffi culties that beset the path of the conscientious geneal ogical student.