Dunnell - shoes, ships

Dunnell is an unusual surname, mainly found in Norfolk and Yorkshire. My link is through great x 5 grandmother Mary Dunnell, born and baptised in Weston Longville (that's the font on the left), Norfolk in 1742. She grew up to marry John Bates and lived until April 1814 - she died just a few days before her brother Barnard, to whom see was close.

When a 'new' Dunnell pops up, I carefully comb my records to see where they may fit in. One link I have yet to prove is with the first woman to gain a medical qualification in Britain, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and her sister Millicent Fawcett, the suffragist. Their mother was reputedly Louisa Dunnell, born 1813, and their aunts Elizabeth and Evelyn Dunnell also married into the Garrett family famous for manufacturing agricultural machinery. The three women were daughters of John Dunnell. Quite a genealogical catch!

However, one link I now believe to be certain of (er, as certain as one can ever be in this game) is between 'my' Dunnell family in Weston Longville and the Dunnell family of Great Yarmouth, later Fritton in Suffolk.

My Mary Dunnell was one of the seven children of farmer Barnabas Dunnell alias Dunning and his wife Mary (born Ingledow); she had one sister, Charlotte born in 1762 just a few months before the father of the family died and who eventually moved to Hackney, Middlesex (left); and she had five brothers: Harry born 1740 (Woodforde employed him as a labourer), Davy born 1745 and died aged 20 years, Barnard born 1747 who became a shoemaker, innkeeper and farmer, Thomas born 1754 who was a carpenter, and Robert born 1756 who also became a carpenter and also moved to Hackney.

Records suggest that a Thomas Dunnell had two sons in Great Yarmouth by a wife called Mary, a David in 1777 and a Robert in 1779. Was this Mary's brother?

The IGI reveals that Thomas Dunnell married Mary Brown at St Andrew in Great Yarmouth in late 1776, so here we have the parents of the two boys. But how could I link these coastal Dunnells with their landlocked namesakes thirty miles away?

On 14 Septemebr 1776, James Woodforde noted in his diary that Thomas Dunnell and Robin Buck ('Mrs Dunnell's man'), helped him with his harvest. Four days later, the diarist was in Great Yarmouth and received a visitor at the Wrestlers in Church Square - Thomas Dunnell (spelled Dunhill in the MS) brought three dozen pencils for which he was paid 3 shillings. Less than a month later, on 13 October, Thomas Dunnell married Mary Brown at St Andrew's church in Great Yarmouth (which I believe to be the church in Gorleston).

Back in Weston (left) the following year, Woodforde notes that Thomas Dunnell and his wife (unnamed) dined in his kitchen with his servants on two dates in February. Woodforde and Dunnell must have discussed greater business than pencils, as by March 1777 the carpenter had been paid £2 15s for making a pair of deal gates for the Parson. So, Woodforde weaves the threads of the story together.

One further mention of Thomas comes in 1807 when his brother Barnard wrote his will and mentions a nephew David, son of his dead brother Thomas.

This David (born 1777) can, I believe, be found in 1841 living at Fritton in Suffolk (not Fritton in Norfolk - confusion due to modern county boundary changes), noted as a shipowner. His wife, Elizabeth, was the Elizabeth Woolby married to a David Dunnell in 1798 at St Nicholas church in Great Yarmouth. Their daughter was Betsy Louisa Dunnell, born 1799 at Great Yarmouth, who married sailmaker William Bristow Sterry in Lakenham, Norfolk in 1819.

David's will is available on the marvellous Norfolk Archives website and states that he was a shipowner of Fritton Hall (!) with property in Fritton and South Town (a trade directory of 1830 named David Dunnell as a shipowner in Southtown). Perhaps there are records of who owned which ships - if there was tax to be paid then there will be!

Written on 28 July 1848 the will makes clear that David's wife and his daughter Mary Ann Stone have already died- and that his daughter Betsy Louisa Sterry and grandchildren by both daughters are his only family.

Elizabeth died in Great Yarmouth district in 1847 aged 68 years which ties in with the baptism of an Elizabeth, daughter of William and Mary Woolby at St Nicholas, Great Yarmouth. Searching wills at National Archives I find that William, a fish curer, died in 1811 and his will names Elizabeth, wife of David Dunnell along with her brother Thomas and sister Mary Lacey.

With David's death in 1849 the Dunnell name in this branch died out. It lived on through his grandsons Robert Dunnell Sterry (died 1870) and Dunnell Stone (born 1839)...I wonder if either of them knew much of their grandfather's shipowning past? Robert, at least, had inherited his grandfather's silver watch.