Catalogue description Daunt and Stoughton families

Records of the Daunt and Stoughton families of Owlpen

There is a group of interesting letters sending news of the Civil War and contemporary happenings from Thomas Daunt at Owlpen to his father in Ireland in 1645, 1646 and 1650 GRO (D979A/P3), and papers relating to the provision of armour and a horseman for the Militia in 1661-1663 GRO (D979A/F4).

The archives have been arranged as follows:-

D979A. The Daunt family

D979B. The Stoughton family

Daunt family of Owlpen, Gloucestershire

Stoughton family of Owlpen, Gloucestershire

Miss M. E. Stoughton through Messrs. Penley, Milward & Bayley, solicitors, Dursley, Glos., July 1953

It is apparent that these records represent only a portion of the Stoughton family archives and the rest have not survived. See GRO D2078 (Acc 4311)

The Stoughton family of Bath, Somerset and Co. Kerry, Ireland, came to Owlpen at the beginning of the nineteenth century after the marriage between Mary Daunt and Thomas Anthony Stoughton of Bath, esq. in 1815 (marriage settlements in GRO D979B/F1). The Daunts were an old Gloucestershire family, said to have come over from Normandy with William I (see John Daunt's Some Account of the Family of Daunt, 1881, pp. 1, 2). They, according to Rudder's History of Gloucestershire, came into possession of the Manor of Owlpen after the marriage of John Daunt with Margery, the daughter and heiress of Robert Oulepen, the then Lord of the Manor. Rudder gives no date for this marriage, but it is thought to have taken place either at the end of the 15th century or the beginning of the 16th century (see The Family of Daunt, p.6, and pedigree of the family in the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society's Transactions, vol. xxxv, p.150). Canon Bazeley in vol. xxvi, p.181 of the B. & G. Arch. Soc. Trans. suggests that the Daunt family had lived in Wotton-under-Edge since the 10th century, but gives no evidence to support this theory. The Oulepen family had, according to Fosbrooke's History of Gloucestershire, vol. 1, p.422, held the Manor of Owlpen from the end of the 12th century. Members of the family are also to be found as witnesses to deeds in Stevenson's Calendar of Gloucester Corporation Deeds and the Calendar of the Berkeley Muniments. (See also D 456 for records relating to the Manor of Owlpen from c.1250).

The Daunt family continued in Owlpen until the beginning of the 19th century and pedigrees of the family are to be found in GRO D979A/F7 and the B. & G. Arch. Soc. Trans. vol. xxxv, p.150. The latter also includes the Stoughton family after the link by marriage with the Daunts in 1815.

It would seem that the Daunt family's connection with Ireland began in the second half of the 16th century, for the Family Daunt, p.11, says that the Daunt family were among those who settled in Co. Cork after the suppression of the Earl of Desmond's rebellion in 1584. No trace of these early years in Ireland has survived among this collection and the earliest reference to Ireland would appear to be in [Thomas Daunt's] diary in 1610 to a journey from Bretfeidstowne to England GRO D979A/F2). There is also an interesting grant by Charles I with the approval of Thomas Wentworth, Lord Deputy of Ireland in 1638, of lands in Co. Cork GRO D979A/T6). The collection also contains records relating to estates in Monmouthshire (GRO D979B/E8, L2) in which the Stoughton family gained an interest through the marriage of Thomas Stoughton with Mrs. Jane Hanbury in 1788 (marriage settlement in GRO D979B/F1).

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