Dummer families seem to have originated independently in two areas of the world: in England and in Germany. It is extremely unlikely that there was ever a link between the two. This web site is concerned with the Dummer families whose origins lie in England. Today those families have spread beyond the shores of the United Kingdom and their members are to be found in North America, Australia, New Zealand, mainland Europe, and elsewhere.

The earliest Dummers took their family name from the village of Dummer in northern Hampshire. The name of the village is derived from Dun (meaning hill) and Mer (lake or pond). A hill there certainly is, in the shape of Dummer Down, but what form the water took is uncertain, for there is no lake or pond there today. It is likely that there was once a dew-pond on the down.

Dummer is a small village just off the busy M3 Motorway where it is joined by the A30 trunk road. The village, with its thatched cottages and ancient church, has somehow managed to stay fairly unspoilt. The general air is that of a prosperous community. The church dates back to around 1200, not many years after William the Conqueror seized the English throne, and about the time that he decreed that a great survey be made of his new kingdom - the Domesday Survey. It is about this time too that we first come across the Dummer family.

Dummer church is lucky to have escaped rebuilding during the Victorian era and therefore retains many of the historic features from past centuries. The chancel and arch date from the late 12th century, as does the rood canopy. The gallery dates from the time of Charles ll. The church has five bells, some of which date back to the time of the Dummer family. An appeal has been launched for the restoration of the bells which will cost £35,000. More details.

Dummers were originally centred in three main areas: Hampshire, Wiltshire, and Sussex. We do not yet know if they were all from a commom origin. The adoption of DNA testing in family history in future will bring some very interesting resuts. By testing living people known to be from each of the groups it may be possible to find the links, although it should always be born in mind that Grannie may not have been telling the truth about the father of her son! Perhaps even testing of identified remains of the very earliest Dummers may be permitted. Time will tell.

The Dummers of Dummer form the earliest of the main groups. As was the custom, the principal landowner took the name of the village as an identity for himself and his family. These Lords of the Manor of Dummer flourished from the beginning of the 12th century until the last of the line died without living offspring at the end of the 16th century. His memorial can still be seen beside the altar of Dummer church. Through marriage, they also had a presence in Somerset for 200 years, bequeathing the family name to the villages of Pendomer and Chilthorne Domer.

The earliest people bearing the name Dummer were from the village of that name, and they bore it in the form de Dummer (or de Dumer/Dommer/Domer), e.g. Geoffrey de Dummer- Geoffrey of or from Dummer - to distinguish themselves from other people of the same first name. In due course the use of "de" was dropped. Thus the Lords of the Manor of Dummer assumed the name of the village shortly after the Norman Conquest (1066) and their descendants continued to use the name for the next five and a half centuries.

Ralph (Radulphus) de Domer, who died before 1205, was one of the earliest recorded members of the family. He married Agnes, heiress of Penne in Somerset, thereby acquiring land in that county to add to his holdings in Hampshire. The hamlet of Pendomer, south-west of Yeovil in Somerset bears witness to their presence their. In the tiny church perched on the hill (pen) at the end of a long country lane, the well-preserved stone figure of Sir John de Dommer, great-grandson of Ralph, clad in chain mail with the Dummer arms shown on his breast and shield, lies on his tombstone, where he has lain for over 700 years. A few miles away at Chilthorne Domer the well-worn effigy of his father William is tucked away behind a chair in the chancel . The lands at Dummer and Somerset were split between the descendants of Sir John. His great-grandson Sir Edmund sold the Somerset lands in 1409. Sir John's great-grand-daughter Ellen became heiress of the lands at Dummer, Hampshire. Ellen married Sir Nicholas Atmore who assumed her surname. Their children were known as Atmore alias Dummer, or vice versa. The last of the line, William Atmore alias Dummer, Comptroller of the Lord Mayor's Chamber in London, died in 1593 in the 36th year of Queen Elizabeth's reign. His sickly son and heir had died before him. His brass plate, originally showing the figures of his wife and son, is fixed to the chancel wall at Dummer church, to the left of the altar.

A cousin of Sir John de Dummer, Sir Richard, also owned a hide of land in the manor of Hartley, 3.5 miles south of Reading, which was afterwards known as Hartley Dummer.

Before the Dummers of Dummer died out in 1593, other Dummers are recorded only a few miles from Dummer village, probably descended from a branch of the more ancient family.One of them, Maud or Matilda Dummer, married Richard Pyldren, and their descendants used the name Dummer in preference to their father's original name. These "Pyldren" Dummers were probably originally small farmers or yeomen, at a time when wealthin the country was starting to be filtered down from a few extremely rich landowners to a wider body of smaller landowners, and by virtue of skillful exploitation of resources the Dummers began to prosper, some moving up the social scale to merchants, lawyers and Gentlemen. They came to amass huge holdings of land in Hampshire, built their mansions and, by virtue of their wealth, exerted considerable influence in the region. Some held Office of State and served as Members of Parliament. One of their number was a founding father of Massachusetts. Their descendants are to be found in North America, Australia and elsewhere. Overall, this was the most successful branch of the family, and certainly the best known.

Richard Pyldren married Matilda (or Maud) Dummer sometime before 1523. Richard was a freeholder at Overton, just 5 miles west of Dummer village, and 22 miles north of Southampton. Matilda was probably the heiress oof John Dummer, the local representative of the King at Overton. Richard variously used either Pyldren or Dummer as his surname, as did his children, but subsequent generations dropped the Pyldren name. The family initially lived at Owslebury, later at Durley. We know of five grandchildren of Richard and Matilda, of which Thomas was the one who continued the mainstream of the family. Thomas married Joane, held land at Bishopstoke and at Swaythling village in North Stoneham parish, dying before 1626, but it was four of his children (John, Richard, Thomas and Stephen) who were to make Dummer a name to be reckoned with.

Richard Dummer, also a son of Thomas and Joane, is believed to have made his fortune as a trader, operating out of the port of Southampton. He was a Puritan, which at times was contrary to the Established Church and the monarch. He emigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, becoming a founding father there, setting up a stock company, acquiring estates, and establishing a milling business. His eldest son Shubael was slain by Indians. Another of his sons Jeremiah Dummer was the America's first American-born silversmith. His grandson William Dummer was Governor of Boston and instrumental in bringing to an end the Indian Wars. William was childless, and he bequeathed his estates to trustees for the establishment of what became in 1763 Dummer Academy, the first school of its kind in the Province.

A third son of Thommas and Joane was Thomas Dummer who inherited Chickenhall Farm or estate and passed it on to his son, also Thomas. The latter's son was one of the most notable members of the Dummer family. Edmund Dummer became the Surveyor of the Navy and was responsible for setting up Devonport Dockyard, and undertaking improvements at Portsmouth. His Survey of the South Coast is a valuable and well-known historic document. Edmund was later discharged from the post after some murky goings-on, whereupon he set up the pioneering Packet Boat service to the West Indies. Misfortune in the business attended him again however, and the cost of building his elegant mansion at South Stoneham (now part of Southampton University) was proving a strain. Sadly one of the most ingenious men of his era died a bankrupt. Lack of heirs was again to result in the estates passing out of the family.

Stephen Dummer was another son of Thomas and Joane. He inherited Middle Street and Hole Farms in Bishopstoke. He married Alice Archer then, like his brother Richard, emigrated to New England with his wife and children. There his daughter Jane married Henry Sewall. (Henry and Jane's son, Samuel Sewall, became an assistant magistrate presiding over the Salem Witch Trials and was ultimately to become Chief Justice of Massachusetts. In later years he regretted the judgement at Salem and also spoke out against slavery). Stephen Dummer brought his family back to Bishopstoke in 1646 and he was buried there in 1670. Stephen's line was the one that survived in Great Britain, and it is from Stephen that today's "Pyldren" Dummers in the UK are descended. Middlestreet Farm seems to have passed out of the family, but Hole (later Foxhole) Farm remained until the mid-nineteenth century.

A grandson of Stephen, Nathaniel, was apprenticed to a mercer in Southampton in 1674 but eventually settled at the house at the end of Compton Street in the village of Compton which until recent years was known as Dummer's End. Dummer tombstones could be seen in the churchyard of old Bishopstoke church but the church was rebuilt further up the hill in the 19th century and eventually the tombstone were moved to the churchyard wall where two remain, barely readable now. One who was buried there (against his wishes because of his strict non-conformist views), was John Dummer who had kept a provision store at St Peter's, Cheesehill, Winchester, for many years until his death in 1848. John, who called himself yeoman, was probably the first of the family to try to win back some of the estates which had passed out of the family to the Bond family some years previously. He failed, like all the others.

John Dummer's younger brother, Stephen, born 1783, had inherited Foxholes Farm at Horton Heath. Like his brother, he was strictly anti the established church and, although he rented pews at Bishopstoke church, his house was registered as a Dissenters Meeting House and he built a little chapel in his farmyard. In his will he provided a piece of land nearby for the Horton Heath Independant Chapel to be built. When he died in 1848 the farm was sold and the money divided between his sons. The last of the Pylden Dummer estates had gone.

The three sons of Stephen went their separate ways although all three of them became grocers! The eldest son, also Stephen, became a tea merchant who travelled the country and his wife and daughter set up a Ladies High School in London. They obviously thought that it would enhance their image if they changed their name to Dummere, a more French sounding name, and they called their grandson Ettienne. The name Dummer does pose a problem when it comes to schools as Dummer Academy in Boston, later Governor Dummer Academy, found, resulting in their decision recently to change the name to The Governor's Academy!

The next son Samuel, became an insurance agent and moved to Sittingbourne, Kent, with his family. There, two of his boys married Dummer sisters, daughters of William Dummer the Bishopstoke blacksmith - see below. However, with only the prospect of working in the brickfields around Sittingbourne, the family decided to emigrate to Australia in 1883, where their descendants live to this day.

William Chamberlayne, the youngest son of Stephen of Foxholes Farm, stayed in the area and ran the post office at Fair Oak. He must have been involved in building the new Independant Chapel at Horton Heath, and he was trustee for many years. The descendants of William Chamberlayne's 14 children still live in the area. Dummer Mews, off St Cross Road in Winchester, is named after James Dummer, one of W.C.'s great-grandchildren.

One of the Pyldren Dummers appears in the little village of Shipley, Sussex, at the end of the 16th century. John Dummer married Mary Michell there in 1596. Mary was to give him 5 children. Their son John is the one we know most about because he was listed as a "Papal Dissenter" in 1641 - Catholics were suspect and a register of them was compiled. This John married twice, his second wife bearing him a little daughter, Mary. John was a yeoman farmer and his farm at Shipley was still known as "Dummer's Farm" until just a few years ago when an unappreciative farmer changed it to Drummer's Farm! John's old oak barn still stood there until recently when it was disassembled and sold. Dummer's Farm Barn

Little Mary Dummer was only 12 years old when her father John died and was buried in the churchyard. Just five years later she married John Michell and bore him an only son. She died at the age of 25 and John Michell buried her under a table top tomb just outside the North door of the church. John Michell married again but the Michell family obviously never forgot little Mary for a memorial plaque in the north aisle of the church commemorates her. Originally the plaque bore the arms of the Pyldren Dummers but during the last century the arms went missing.

We can only speculate as to why John Dummer moved to Shipley, away from the other Pyldren Dummers. The reason probably lies in their religion. The other Dummers were ardent Protestants; in fact, Puritans, who would have despised them.

We can only trace the main body of Sussex Dummers back to the 1690s when John and Mary Dummer had their children baptised at the little church in the village of Heyshott, just north of the South Downs. John and most of his descendants were agricultural labourers working the fields around the market town of Midhurst for two or more centuries, in contrast to the Pyldren Dummers of Hampshire who in general were wealthy landowners.
An important influence in the area was the Cowdray Estate, the great mansion at Cowdray being the home of the Montagues. The latter kept the Roman Catholic faith alive during the difficult years of religious turmoil, and for many years their workers followed suit, the baptism and confirmation of Dummer children being recorded in the registers of the Cowdray chapel. Life was hard for them - Richard Dummer was buried poor in 1793 - but in spite of the hardship the Sussex Dummers became the most prolific of the Dummer family groups. Their descendants have spread from Sussex throughout the country and beyond, including Australia and the USA, but Dummers still have a presence in Easebourne, just outside the drive of Cowdray.

James Dummer, born 1793, became a miller and pursued his trade at various mills around Midhurst. He too experienced poverty, being sent back to Cocking, his village of birth when he could no longer support himself and his young family. It seems that he was the first of the line to start tracing his ancestors. His motive was probably to live out his dreams, for these Sussex Dummers believed that the family had previously been wealthy but had been cheated out of its rightful inheritances. He corresponded with Stephen Dummer of Foxhole Farm at Horton Heath, Bishopstoke, with a view to trying to win back into the Dummer family some of the estates that they claimed had wrongly passed from the family. He studied the complicated wills of the Pyldren Dummers and produced a long and detailed paper to justify the claims, demonstrating a surprising level of education for somebody of the rural class. His brother William took a more practical course and proceeded to Cranbury Park at Otterbourne and dug up the front lawn of the former Dummer mansion in an attempt to get himself arrested, so that he could prove his claim in a court of law - without success - the Chamberlain family would not prosecute! He had another go at North Stoneham Park where he cut down a tree. Although he was arrested this time, the magistrate discharged him. William never was able to put his case in law and he died, frustrated, some years later.

After James' death his son Charles carried on the campaign, with similar lack of success. Charles, a millwright, married Julie Isaline Susanne Marie Martin from Switzerland at Terwick church. The hopeless situation in agriculture in the mid-nineteenth century caused Charles to take his young wife and parents to Portsmouth where he worked as a shipwright in the Royal Dockyard. The Royal Navy was changing over to steam propulsion, recruiting labour from far and wide, and the skills of a millwright would have been useful. Like many others who took part in the drift from the land to the tightly packed streets of industrial towns in the 19th century, the 21-year old Charles must have found the experience difficult at first, particularly as both his parents died at his home within 18 months. When Charles died in 1917 all the family history papers went into storage for 50 years until they were passed to the present author in 1960. Fifty years of further research has resulted in the present one-name study of the Dummer families.

One of Charles' sons, Benjamin, sailed for Australia in 1887 at the age of 21. Charles' brother Thomas had sailed with his family 13 years earlier. The prospects of a better life with greater opportunities was too much to resist. A hundred years later Benjamin's name was added to the Australian Pioneer Wall at Leichhardt, N.S.W.

Dummers first appear in the parish registers of St Cyriac's church, Lacock, Wiltshire, in 1559. It is evident that at the time there were already several members of the family there. How far back they went, and where they came from we don't know. Unfortunately we can't link them to other branches of the family. During the succeeding centuries their name crops up regularly as children are born, young people are wed and remains are buried. It is no surprise to find that some were weavers, for this part of Wiltshire was noted for sheep and wool.

The village is dominated by the manor house, Lacock Abbey, a former nunnery and the home of the Talbot family. William Fox-Talbot etched the building into the archives of photographic history - his image of an oriel window there is the oldest negative in existance. What makes Lacock so interesting is that it has changed so little over the centuries and many of the buildings there today would have been familiar to earlier Dummers. The old barn is now the Fox-Talbot Museum. Most of the people reading this will have seen the village several times since it has been used as the backdrop of so many television costume and film dramas, including Pride and Prejudice and Harry Potter .

The Talbot family was almost certainly the reason why there have been Dummer families in Wales since the end of the eighteenth century. When the Talbots set about exploiting the Welsh coalfields they recruited some of labour from Wiltshire. A John Dummer was baptised at nearby Chippenham in 1771. He was almost certainly the John Dummer who was the forefather of the Welsh Dummers.

It is extremely difficult to produce family trees of the Lacock Dummers in the 16th and 17th centuries because of the lack of detail in the parish registers. (e.g. which of the John Dummers was the father of Robert born in March 1704?). It is interesting to notice the popularity of certain Christian names of the Lacock Dummers which were not common in other groups, particularly Robert, Ephraim and Moses.

Moses Dummer, born at Bowden Hill, Lacock, in 1851, was the son of a labourer. When he grew up Moses moved north and eventually became a warder at the City Jail at Gorton, Lancashire. His grandson son Geoffrey William Arnold Dummer was born at Kingston upon Hull in 1909. Geoffrey was to become the most famous Dummer of the 20th century. After a technical education he served in several firms in the electrical components industry, then moved into what became the Royal Radar Establishment at the beginning of the Second World War. There he became responsible for the design and manufacture of over 70 types of radar training equipments. After the war he continued research into electronic components and reliablity. It was in 1952 that he made the the historic proposal of integrating numerous electronic devices on a single silicon chip to aid reliability. Although he was by then a world authority he was unable to obtain funding and support from the Ministry or from British industry and it was left to other countries to develop his ideas and reap the benefit. Nowadays Geoffrey Dummer is internationally recognised as the Prophet of the Integrated Circuit. The year 2009 was the centenary of his birth.

Today there are no Dummers at Lacock; the last member, an old lady up Bowden Hill, died in the early 1960s. Only "Dummer's Bridge", the little packhorse bridge down the lane by the church bears witness to their former presence. Pay it a visit when you're there.

John Dummer appears at Margam, near Port Talbot in Wales in 1801. He was almost certainly a Lacock Dummer, although he claimed that he was born in Bristol. He was probably the John Dummer who was baptised in 1771 at Chippenham, near Lacock. The Talbot family of Lacock had been instrumental in opening up the coal mines in South Wales, and to service the industry it had created the port which bears its name. The family would naturally try to recruit labour from the rural workers on their estates in Wiltshire.

John Dummer himself did not become a miner, however, but most of his descendants did work in the mines, the steelworks or tinplate works. Hard work, dirty work, and most of all, dangerous work. John married twice and both his brides had the same surname, David. Whether they were related is not clear - Welsh names can cause real problems to researchers! He progressed from farm labourer to farmer at Lad y Pade Farm, Taibach, with 22 acres.

In spite of the hazardous nature of their employment the Welsh Dummers grew to become one of the largest groups of the name (John had 76 great-grandchildren), and they have spread beyond the borders of the Principality, some back to England, thereby losing the accent their ancestors had picked up many generations previous, and others to Australia and America, like Edward of Llandilo who became a tinplate worker at Wheeling, West Virginia. Back in Wales, Evan Dummer became mayor of Port Talbot in 1929.

OTHER DUMMERS

The main groups of Dummer families have been identified above. Besides these there exists quite a number of small family groups and individuals who have not been linked to the main groups. Some of these are important inasmuch as they are the ancestors of people living today. Hopefully some pieces of information may come to light to enable some of the groups to be rescued and reunited with their families. Many will never be. Here are a few of them.

Examples of the arms borne by the old family of Dummer can be seen at Dummer village church and Pendomer church. At Dummer church the Arms are quartered with those of the Atmore family on the brass plate to the left of the altar. At Pendomer the recumbant figure of sir John de Dummer has the arms on his breast. The arms are described as "Azure, a golden crescent between 6 billets, 3,2,1, or". A golden crescent between golden rectangles on a blue background.

The "Pyldren" Dummers used different arms: "Azure, 3 fleur de lis or, on a chief of the second a demi-lion of the first". Whether the arms came from the Pyldren side or the Dummer side of the family is not known. The arms were originally used unofficially, but at the height of the family's prosperity 3 members sought permission to have their use regularised by the Earl Marshall, which was granted.

A little later they also requested approval to use the original arms of the Dummers of Dummer, from whom they claimed descent, however, they were only permitted to use a variant, namely: "Gules, 9 billetts argent, 4,3,2, and a bezant in the base".

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THE STUDY
The author is the registered member of The Guild of One-Name Studies for the family of Dummer. He has researched Dummer family history for over 40 years. Virtually all his findings have now been made available as a comprehensive book - The Family of Dummer of British Origin, by Michael Dummer, Seventh Edition June 2005.

THE BOOK
The book consists of 360 A4 size pages: 111 pages of descriptive text, 150 photographs, transcripts of important wills, facsimile copies of important nineteenth century studies, family album, other relevant documents, a 55 page listing of all the entries of Dummers in the General Record Office Index of Births, Marriages and Deaths from 1837 until the mid-twentieth century, a list of all sources used in the study, and an index of persons.

WHERE TO SEE IT
Printed copies of the book can be consulted at a number of record offices and libraries, including the British Library, the Library of Congress at Washington, the Library of the Genealogical Society of Utah at Salt Lake City, the Library of the Society of Genealogists at London, Hampshire Record Office at Winchester, Southampton Archives at the Guildhall Southampton, West Sussex Record Office at Chichester, the libraries of the Hampshire Genealogical Society, the Sussex Family History Society and the Guild of One-Name Studies. We regret that printed copies of the book are not available for purchase.

THE COMPACT DISC

The study is also available on an inexpensive CD from which the book can be printed out. Copies can be obtained from the Church Wardens of All Saints Church at Dummer village, Hampshire - the ancient church of the Dummer family. All proceeeds from the sale of the CD go towards maintenance of Dummer church. Email the church wardens at allsaintschurch.dummer@hantsweb.org.uk or go to the church website by clicking on the link below, then on Local Links, then on The Family of Dummer CDROM
www.hants.org.uk/allsaintschurchdummer

The author is also prepared to try to answer questions on Dummer family history. Email him by keying in the address below (omitting the gap in the word dummer in the address which has been put there in an attempt to avoid spam).
dum mer@one-name.org


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