What's so special about
Lord Ashburton?
The large double portrait of the first Lord Ashburton and his wife dominates the Council Chamber in Ashburton’s Town Hall, but why should he remain of interest nearly two hundred and fifty years after his death?
Well, from today’s point of view, it’s in part because he was involved as a lawyer in two cases in the eighteenth century that remain important to human rights in England and Wales, each of which has an interesting back-story. His personal history, starting life as plain John Dunning, is interesting too, but we deal with that in another page on this site.
In 1760, When Dunning was a junior barrister plying his trade on the Western Circuit, King George III came to the throne. The King immediately changed the whole complexion of the government by appointing his friend Lord Bute as Prime Minister. This occasioned furious opposition in Parliament and outside, where it was driven by the notorious journalist MP John Wilkes. Despite a good Devon accent and a fierce legal mind, Dunning cultivated a boorish and uncouth manner to go with his unprepossessing appearance. Wilkes was by all accounts even less physically attractive, but it did not prevent him boasting a reputation as a rake and wit-about-town.
Wilkes set about attacking the government in a malicious and satirical publication which he called The North Briton, in reference to Bute’s Scottish connections. By the time the weekly reached edition 45 in 1763, the government had had enough, and alleging what it called seditious libel, issued a warrant in general terms supposedly authorising the arrest and imprisonment of all authors, printers and publishers of the paper. No-one was named in the warrant which thus seemed to give the government officers a free hand to arrest anyone they pleased. Homes and premises were raided and forty-eight people arrested. Wilkes spent a week in the Tower. Dunning was briefed to oppose the government and made his name by a spirited defence in a series of cases which resulted in the courts declaring such warrants illegal, and so putting limits on those in authority prosecuting anyone they disliked. Dunning’s success was the more notable because the Chief Justice was Lord Mansfield, a known government supporter and a Scott like Bute. Wilkes and Liberty! became a popular cry.
As his star rose, Dunning made important friends. In 1776 he was appointed Recorder of Bristol, and in 1778 following a change of government, Solicitor-General; this required a seat in Parliament and so Dunning was parachuted (as we might now say) into Calne, Wiltshire. This was a seat in the pocket of Lord Orford, who also controlled Ashburton. It is unlikely to be a coincidence that Dunning had already published a much-lauded defence of the East India Company, whose business was so important to the Ashburton wool trade.
In Parliament Dunning largely supported what might now be considered progressive causes. He was noted for attacking the misuse of sinecures and pensions to obtain government support. When his own government succeeded in expelling Wilkes from the Commons, our Solicitor-General was tactfully absent. But eventually his position became untenable and he resigned his post in 1770. He then became a major critic of the government policy of repression in the American colonies (where he became something of a hero). He supported efforts to relieve Roman Catholics from the penalties to which they were still subject.
So it would seem surprising that in a case which became a landmark for the anti-slavery movement Dunning accepted the brief to represent the slave-owners.
James Somersett was an African sold into slavery in Virginia whose owner Charles Stewart brought him to England in 1769. He left his master in 1771, so Stewart had him kidnapped and put on a ship for Jamaica, but before it could sail his friends had Somersett produced before the courts. The judge was once again Lord Mansfield, but this time Dunning’s eloquence could not prevail and Mansfield ordered that Somersett should be freed. The case is often taken to mean that slavery could no longer exist in England, although Mansfield’s judgement was actually on rather more technical grounds.
In truth, Dunning was the epitome of his time. The liberties that he had in mind when supporting Wilkes or the American colonies, or even the East India Company, were the liberties of the property-owning classes against a high-handed government. Sadly we have to report that in 1782 and despite his earlier contentions, he accepted both a peerage (becoming the Baron Ashburton of Ashburton) and a very large pension from the government. He had married Elizabeth Baring in 1780, and so was able to buy and transform the Spitchwick estate beside the Dart. But he did not live to enjoy his successes, for he died at Exmouth in 1783, aged only 51. Sabine Baring-Gould, an indirect descendant and so probably recycling family tales, sardonically commented that on the marriage Lady Ashburton could look for a happy release from a very disagreeable husband in a very short time. The stern Council portrait suggests some truth in this verdict. The first Lord Ashburton is buried in Ashburton church, behind the organ.
Sources:
Baring-Gould: Devon Characters and Strange Events.
Charles Chenevix Trench: Portrait of a Patriot
Law Reports: