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| Geographical Spread of the Early Dunkerleys [Note: References, in square brackets, are quoted at the end. You can go to the reference by pressing ' ctrl+f ' and input the reference you want e.g. [23] then pressing 'Enter', and return to your place in the text by simply pressing 'Enter' again].
I have already explored the information available on possible origins of the surname 'Dunkerley' and its possible association with a group of surnames best represented by 'Dunkley' (see here). The article on this page of the site examines the evidence for the spread of the Dunkerley family during the early years of its known existende.
Chronological Database Listings
In an attempt to gain a better insight into the origins and developments of the Dunkerley family I compiled chronological listings on spreadsheets of all the data I could discover about the early Dunkerleys. The main source of information used was the IGI, but I also included data derived from other sources, such as the online National Archive databases, Access To Archives, the Lancashire Online Parish Clerks internet listings (incomplete, and not available for all relevant parishes), the Oldham parish registers as compiled by Rosemary Brown, and other occasional sources.
Although all the sources are useful, the advantage of the IGI is that it is likely to cover all relevant geographic areas equally and therefore show realistic distributions of the Dunkerley surname at different times. I began by searching for all occurrences of ‘Dunkerley’, (including names that sound similar but have slightly different spellings) from 1450 to 1810; in fact the earliest occurrence is in 1538. There are many duplicate entries so I then set about eliminating the obvious ones, although some will, inevitably, have remained. The resulting database of about 1,680 entries records such basic data as year, often a precise date, forename, surname, nature of the event (birth/baptism, marriage, burial/death) and locality.
The following observations are derived from the spreadsheets. In many cases it is possible to achieve additional insights by ‘drilling down’ into individual IGI records to discover connections with the children or parents related to a particular event, and this often improves the quality of the data. The Lancashire Online Parish Clerks listings and the Oldham parish registers sometimes include information on the occupation of the person described, and in the parish registers there is sometimes a more precise description of their abode. Again this improves the insights that can be obtained, helps identify duplicate records and may help to clarify relationships among people with similar names. Some problems, however, cannot be resolved.
In the following paragraphs I describe the apparent development of the Dunkerley surname in different parts of the country. In examining the data I would strongly encourage the reader to look at the geography of north and east Manchester on Google Maps UK, centering perhaps on ‘Failsworth’. Google Maps UK is at http://maps.google.co.uk/maps. Greenwood's map, shown below, can be accessed in full at http://www.lancashire.gov.uk/environment/oldmap/greenwood/g6.htm
Geographical Development of the Dunkerley Family
Nottinghamshire
It may be that the Robert Dunkerley born in 1538 married Anne Ward[6] on 24th July 1561 at Wysall, just south of Nottingham[7]. Another Robert Dunkerley is also recorded as marrying at Barton in Fabis, in the same area, twenty years later to the day – either a coincidence or an error. Perhaps encouragingly for ‘the Nottingham connection’ there is a more solid reference in 1609 to a man called ‘Dunkerley’ involved in the sale of freehold property at West Leake – close to Wysall and Barton in Fabis. A deed in Mediaeval English suggests that this man inherited the property from his father, who was based in Middlesex, but I do not have a full transcription of it and the handwriting is very difficult. There is a further Nottingham reference, to a Phillippa Dunkerley of West Leake who in 1621 was mentioned by the church wardens 'for being with child by whom we know not' [7a]. In any case I know of no later Dunkerley references in the Nottinghamshire area during the seventeenth or eighteenth century, so the line may have died out.
London
Apart from the enigmatic Nottingham references, an early IGI record that may be reliable occurs in 1548. It relates to a Cicely Dunkerley who married William Prat on 8th July of that year at the church of Saint Pancras in Soper Lane, London. It is worth noting that St Pancras used to lie in Middlesex – perhaps suggesting a connection with the Nottingham properties. If we assume that Miss Cicely was about twenty years old on the date of her nuptials she would have been born around 1528, surely ante-dating the first Robert of Nottingham. It is not clear how well the Dunkerley line persisted in London. A ‘Robert Donkerley’ paid £3 in a Subsidy Roll (tax) in 1582, another Robert married there in 1609, but there is then a break of eighty-five years until an Adam Dunkerley is noted as a Yeoman of the Guard between 1694 and 1723.
During the eighteenth century the IGI lists forty-five London Dunkerley baptisms and nineteen marriages, one of which involved a Mary Dunkerley in the Fleet prison. There are also records of another ‘A. Dunkerley’ who rose through the ranks of Porter in Somerset House from 1715 onwards[8]. It is hardly surprising to find members of any family in London – it would be remarkable if it were not so for the capital was always a great magnet. The same churches tend to recur among the London Dunkerleys and it would be interesting to try to establish links between the London families. A cursory inspection of some of the duplicated IGI records shows that on occasion the same person is represented as ‘Dunkley’ and as ‘Dunkerley’, but it is unclear if this indicates a ‘blending’ of the two names, or simply confusion on the part of the people who submitted the records. It may also be noted that the forenames of the London Dunkerleys are often quite different to those of the Dunkerleys of Lancashire. In any case it is perhaps unlikely that the London Dunkerleys populated the provinces – that was not the way things generally worked.
The Manchester Area
In 1549 the first solid record appears on what was to become pretty much ‘home ground’ for the Dunkerleys. A certain ‘Elizabeth Dunkerley’ had the tenancy of a property in Manchester on the Earl of Derby’s estate[9]. Elizabeth was one of four tenants mentioned in this document and the only woman. It is perhaps plausible that she had inherited the tenancy on the death of her husband and would thus have been a woman of mature age. As such she or her putative husband may be the best candidate for the earliest known occurrence of the name ‘Dunkerley’ – let us guess at about 1519. For the moment, this may be treated as the starting point of tri-syllabic Dunkerleys.
Middleton
We do not know if Elizabeth from Manchester had any family, but in 1553 the IGI records the birth of another Elizabeth Dunkerley who married Randle Kemp in Manchester cathedral in 1574 and was then described as ‘of Middleton’. Middleton is only a few miles north of Manchester, so there may have been a family relationship. Even before that date there is a Dunkerley reference to Middleton, through the birth of a Nicholas about 1572. He married Elizabeth Lees there in 1597 and a son, James, was baptised in Manchester cathedral in 1599. I have no record of any Dunkerley in Middleton from 1572 to 1690 and it seems that the family died out there. From 1690 to the end of the eighteenth century, however, seven births, twelve baptisms, five marriages, one death and one burial are recorded there, so it is clear that a small Dunkerley presence was maintained in Middleton during that period.
Newton Heath
Elizabeth Dunkerley, of Middleton, who married Randle Kemp, died in 1610 in ‘Newton’ (believed to be what is nowadays Newton Heath), another village north of Manchester that figures with a certain prominence in the history of the early Dunkerleys. In fact the first reference is the birth there of John Dunkerley in about 1565 who had two sons, Adam and Daniel, baptised in 1591 and 1593 respectively with a ‘Newton Chapple’ connection. In 1631 a Richard Dunkerley was born there, as was a James in 1635. There follow several baptisms in Newton: a baby unknown in 1660, a James in 1663, a male in 1666, an ‘Elizh’ and a James both in 1669, a Mary in 1676, a female and male unknown in 1688, and a Hanna in 1692. During the eighteenth century there are 16 recorded Dunkerley baptisms in Newton, with a prominent gap from 1711 to 1762. However in 1714 and 1728 a John Dunkerley, ‘whitster’ and yeoman, rented property from the Warden and Fellows of Manchester college (cathedral) and must therefore have been reasonably prosperous. The occupation of ‘whitster’ involved laying out linen cloth on the ground to whiten in the sun for a period of several months, so there is an indication that John Dunkerley was a farmer with an interest also in textiles.
Newport Pagnell
Returning to the point at which Elizabeth Dunkerley who married Randle Kemp was born in 1553, there occurs an unexpected Dunkerley record at Newport Pagnell in Buckinghamshire. The Dunkerley in question was once again called Elizabeth and we know nothing of her other than that she married George Bosse on 3rd September 1559. Buckinghamshire is good ‘Dunkley’ territory and in fact of nine IGI Dunkley/Dunkerley occurrences listed for Newport Pagnell, only this one is a Dunkerley. Further, of 390 IGI Dunkley/Dunkerley occurrences listed for Buckinghamshire, all but four are Dunkleys and there is some evidence that two of the four listed as Dunkerley are also listed as Dunkley in duplicate entries. I therefore suspect that Elizabeth Dunkerley may be an example of an accidental Dunkley/Dunkerley switch.
Failsworth
The next Dunkerley occurrence puts another bit of Manchester geography on the map. An IGI entry indicates the birth of a male Dunkerley who married about 1581, described as ‘of Failsworth’. Failsworth is the next village to Newton Heath along the road from Manchester to Oldham. This Dunkerley and his wife (‘Mrs.’) were born about 1558 and 1559 respectively. We have no information of any children, but a Failsworth Dunkerley presence is confirmed by the birth of a John Dunkerley about 1579 who married and had a son, Robert, baptised in Manchester cathedral in 1611.
Also born in Failsworth was an Alice Dunkerley, about 1581, who might have been John’s sister; she married a Robert Shepley (or Shipley) about 1635 and the couple emigrated to Massachusetts where they had three children between 1637 and 1643. The first child, John, was born at Salem, the point where John Winthrop, a Puritan leader, established a settlement between 1630 and 1640. Alice died in Chelmsford, Massachusetts in1678. This family has a long pedigree in the United States that can be followed on the IGI.
A continuing Dunkerley presence in Failsworth is shown by the birth of another John, about 1586, and three Roberts, two buried about 1600 and 1613; the last probably refers to a Robert born there in 1611. At least one Failsworth Dunkerley family appears to have made some progress for in 1613 John Dunkerley bought some land there from Sir John Byron ‘including closes called Oldham Field, Brown Knoll, Yarncroft, Little Pingot, &c., with freedom of turbary in a moss room or moss dale on Droylsden Moor’[10]. The name ‘Yarncroft’ may denote textile activity.
A substantial gap – seventy-nine years – then appears in the Failsworth records, until three baptisms at the Dob Lane chapel, on the Newton side of Failsworth. The children were called Hanna, Samuel and John and were born respectively in 1692, 1701 and 1703. Four further baptisms took place at ‘Dob Lane and Newton Chapel, Failsworth’ from 1706 to 1711 but after that the Failsworth trail again appears to go cold for a hundred years or more. There was no Established church in Failsworth until 1846, but I understand that Dob Lane chapel continued to function.
Crumpsall, Blackley, Broughton, Heaton and Prestwich
The geography of the next Dunkerley grouping needs some introduction. About half way between Manchester and Middleton, at a distance of about an hour’s walk, in the valley of the River Irk, lies what used to be the old village of Crumpsall on the west bank, with the village of Blackley to its southeast on the east bank and Prestwich to its northwest[11]. Crumpsall and Blackley very much depend on Manchester, but Prestwich is an ancient parish of which, for many years, Oldham was a chapel of ease. As such Oldham villagers often used Prestwich church, especially for marriages and baptisms. However a few Prestwich baptisms/marriages/burials can be identified as relating to local people because they include additional geographical information, such as ‘Heaton’ or ‘Broughton’.
The first of these Manchester villages where the Dunkerley name appears in the IGI is Crumpsall, or ‘Cromsall’ as it is usually called in the older records. The burials of a husband and wife, Robert and Margery, are noted there by the IGI, Margery in 1578 with Robert pre-deceasing her. If Robert died at a good age he could have been one of the very earliest Dunkerleys. Another Robert is shown as having died at Crumpsall in 1584 and Online Parish Clerk records note the death of a third Robert ‘householder’ in 1588, and another Margery of ‘Cromsall’ was buried in 1594. I have no other references to Dunkerleys in Crumpsall until 1739, a gap of over 140 years, after which there are occasional births and baptisms to the end of the eighteenth century.
In neighbouring Blackley the earliest event recorded in the IGI is a birth in 1684 followed by several more in the first decade of the eighteenth century. Altogether there are thirty-five birth/baptisms, marriages or burials recorded during the 1700s and it appears that there must have been several Dunkerley families in the Blackley/Crumpsall area at this time. Other Dunkerleys lived at neighbouring Heaton, and are recorded via Prestwich. From 1670 onwards the IGI indicates a persistent Dunkerley presence at Prestwich; there are eight records in the seventeenth century and a hundred and eight throughout the eighteenth century. As already explained, some of these – perhaps a significant proportion – can be expected to relate to Oldham. However the data add to the impression that at Prestwich, Crumpsall and Blackley there was a community containing several Dunkerley families. It should be noted, however, that there are no references in the IGI to any Dunkerleys in this group of villages between 1594 and 1670, a gap of 76 years covering the period when cotton-working moved out of Manchester into the villages to the north and east.
Ashton-Under-Lyne
The next Dunkerley grouping to appear in the IGI for the area around Manchester is at Ashton Under Lyne, a few miles to the east. In 1600 a ‘John Dunkarley’, son of ‘Robart Dunkarley’ was baptised at Saint Michael’s church. In 1631 a Robert Newton alias Dunkerley, Webster (weaver), of Knotlane in Ashton under Lyne was prosecuting several men concerning the death of Edward Lees. In about 1681 a Sarah Dunkerley was born and the next year a John Dunkerley was baptised at St. Michael’s church in the town. A Sarah (conceivably the one from ‘about 1681’) was baptised there and the IGI identifies another baptism for a ‘John’ in ‘about 1686’. A further John put the font at St. Michael’s to use in 1688. In the meantime there was the baptism of the son of John Dunkerley, originally of Ancoats (close to the centre of Manchester), at Droylsden, situated between Manchester and Ashton in 1664, and in 1665 there was a death there. After 1688 I have no further notice of Dunkerleys in these areas until 1709 when the first of eighty-seven eighteenth-century records appears at Ashton. The Ashton data indicate a persistent and increasing Dunkerley presence in that town throughout the century and it appears that there must have been a number of families based there. There are also other small eighteenth century groupings of Dunkerley occurrences in neighbouring Dukinfield (6), Mossley (8) and Mottram (8)
Oldham
Turning now to Oldham, it will immediately become apparent that this is the area in which the Dunkerley family took deepest root and throve. My knowledge of the community there is greater than in other areas because, unlike in the case of the other parishes, I have access to the full parish records for the period in addition to the IGI data. However the following comments on the sixteenth and seventeenth century data separate out the significance of the IGI references so as to be able to make a fair assessment of the importance of Oldham in the development of the Dunkerley family at this time.
The first known reference to the name Dunkerley in Oldham comes in 1565 with the baptism of a John Donkerley, listed in both the Parish Registers and the IGI. Five other birth/baptism and one burial record occur to the end of the sixteenth century, three of which are in the IGI.
In the seventeenth century there are one hundred and nineteen known birth/baptism, marriage, death/burial references for Oldham, of which eighty-two are listed in the IGI. This last figure comfortably exceeds all the other seventeenth century Dunkerley IGI occurrences combined – about forty-nine – and indicates the pre-eminent position that Oldham had by then assumed for the family.
In the eighteenth century the number of Dunkerley occurrences in Oldham continued to proliferate. The IGI indicates that about seven hundred and seventy-four separate births/baptisms and marriages are recorded in Oldham (burials rarely note the locality). This compares with one hundred and fourteen in Prestwich, ninety-eight in Manchester, eighty-nine in Ashton Under Lyne and seventy-five in London, with smaller numbers elsewhere, out of a total of about one thousand three hundred and two occurrences. Clearly a continuation of these patterns into the nineteenth century explains the distribution shown in the CASA 1881 map (available here). Manchester
The final area where the distribution and development of the Dunkerley family needs to be considered is Manchester itself. The earliest record, as explained previously, refers to Elizabeth Dunkerley who leased property there in 1549. Next comes the birth of a John Dunkerley in 1566, recorded in the IGI, followed by another John Dunkerley in the Muster Roll for 1569 and the birth of another Elizabeth in the same year. Sixteen further occurrences are known to the end of the sixteenth century, some from the IGI, others from the Online Parish Clerk records and elsewhere and this exceeds the number of occurrences in Oldham or elsewhere, suggesting that the Dunkerleys were centred on Manchester at this time.
In the seventeenth century the situation changed and although Manchester still shows a significant number of occurrences in the eighteenth century, many of these were baptisms or marriages in Manchester cathedral. It is known that, perhaps for different reasons, many people travelled from outlying areas (including Oldham) to the cathedral to be married or have their babies baptised, such as Elizabeth Dunkerley who married Randle Kemp in 1674[12]. This being the case, the number of Dunkerley occurrences attributed to Manchester probably exaggerates the importance of Manchester as a Dunkerley abode at the expense of surrounding areas such as Newton, Failsworth or Oldham. For the eighteenth century there are about one hundred Dunkerley occurrences on the IGI in Manchester, but 57 or these are for Manchester cathedral and many may not represent resident Dunkerleys. Of the remaining entries, sixteen are from Denton, Gorton and Openshaw, all localities east of Manchester and arguably relating to Ashton Under Lyne rather as Failsworth and Newton Heath link to Oldham, or Blackley, Crumpsall and Prestwich link to Middleton and Oldham.
Apparent Migration of the Dunkerley surname
Elsewhere[13] [link] I have suggested that the period when cotton working spread from Manchester to the outlying towns, from about 1603 to the later decades of the seventeenth century, coincides with the period in which the early Dunkerleys appeared in strength in the Oldham area. In fact, the IGI indicates rather unexpected absences of Dunkerley occurrences in Middleton, Failsworth, Crumpsall, Blackley and Prestwich, as well as London, at this time. There appears to be some continuity in Newton Heath and, especially, in Ashton Under Lyne through this period. It is also worth noting that there is a puzzling gap in the IGI Dunkerley occurrences from 1613 to 1627 for all areas. There is, however, also a gap in the Oldham Registers from 1605 to 1622, and the IGI gap may simply relate to a period when registrations were not adequately maintained in the parishes, so that family members have been unable to record events in the IGI during this period[14].
In any case, I think that the geographical distribution of the occurrences that do exist are at least permissive of the idea that the Dunkerley family migrated during the seventeenth century to some considerable extent from what is nowadays the central Manchester area (formerly the town of Manchester) into the outlying villages, especially Oldham and to a lesser extent Ashton Under Lyne. There they established nuclei that prospered with the growth of the domestic cotton industry in the eighteenth century and industrialisation in the nineteenth century.
Dunkerleys Elsewhere in England
One or two other observations on the presence, or lack, of early Dunkerley occurrences (up to 1810) in what were, or became, important Lancashire cotton towns may be of interest. There are no IGI occurrences for Bolton until 1803, which is certainly noteworthy considering that Bolton initially rivalled Manchester itself as a home of the early cotton industry in the seventeenth century. There are also no IGI occurrences up to 1810 of Dunkerleys in the Leigh area, which was involved in cotton from the eighteenth century.
However there are twelve Dunkerleys in the IGI and another seven in the Online Parish Clerks records in Blackburn, which became a major cotton-weaving town, in the eighteenth century, from 1732 onwards. In the context of Reaney’s note that the surname ‘Dunkerley’ may derive from ‘Dinckley’ near Blackburn, the lack of early Dunkerleys is interesting. There are only seven occurrences (all IGI) in Bury (near Prestwich) from 1736, a couple in Stockport (from 1747), a few in Dukinfield (from 1782), a few in Walton-Le-Dale (near Preston) from 1725 and an insignificant scattering elsewhere in the Manchester/Lancashire area.
Among Dunkerleys residing away from areas important for the cotton trade, there is an interesting collection of seven Dunkerleys who could not spell in the Tyneside area from 1742 onwards (‘Donkerley, Duncarly, Donkerly’), a curious group of eight Dunkerleys in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire (from 1783) and a scatter of Dunkerleys in Yorkshire from 1701. Some of these souls could have been coal miners, for Tyneside and Yorkshire are underlain by Coal Measures and Gainsborough may well be.
The eighteenth century Yorkshire Dunkerleys also merit a comment. Of nearly forty occurrences in the IGI, fourteen, dating from 1733 onwards, relate to Saddleworth, an area adjacent to Oldham and likely to be related to families in that town. Nine (the first in 1701, but then dating from 1793) are in the Huddersfield area, the first town east of the Pennine Hills from Oldham and later to become the seat of a substantial branch of the family that used the spelling ‘Donkersley’. Another seven, from 1741, are at Whitby on the Yorkshire coast and seem to represent a breakaway from the main area. The rest are scattered.
Spelling of the Dunkerley Surname
I have commented on the long-running stability of the three-syllable Dunkerley surname, but also that there are a number of spelling variations. It seems likely to me that although spelling of the name might have varied locally, its pronunciation in the different regional dialects could well have been essentially identical. We cannot know why the name tended to be written differently in different places, but, bearing in mind that very few ordinary people could write in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries I would suspect that the consistency that seems to hold locally may be ascribed to parish registrars adopting a particular spelling and maintaining it for the duration of their tenures. It would be interesting to investigate this, perhaps in Oldham where the tenures of the registrars are known.
The vast majority of occurrences are listed under ‘Dunkerley’. ‘Dunkerly’ was rare in Oldham but a common variant in Ashton Under Lyne, Mottram, Mossley and elsewhere during much of the eighteenth century. ‘Donkerley’ was common in Oldham from 1565 to 1631 but also from 1742 to 1755. ‘Dunckerley’ was common in Oldham until the 1720s but then became common in London until at least 1799. Practically any variant with an ‘s’ in the middle of the name (‘Dunkersley’, ‘Dankersley’ and ‘Donkersley’) is located in Yorkshire.
Filename:Geographical Spread of the Early Dunkerleys. Version of 10th March 2007. This page was last modified on 10 May 2009
[14] Amanda Bevan explains in her very helpful book that the IGI is derived in large part from transcripts of parish registers, and that these were started only from 1538. In fact the average date of surviving registers, she states, is 1611, so we are perhaps lucky to have any Dunkerley data in the IGI before 1611 and incomplete record keeping in the sixteenth/early seventeenth century should be unsurprising. I am unaware of any events of national disruption in the period 1613-1627, however, so it is still unclear to me that there should be so consistent a gap in the records during that period. See Bevan, A., 2006, 'Tracing your Ancestors in the National Archives - the Website and Beyond', HMSO, ISBN 1 903365 89 9. | |
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