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Archiver > BENHAM > 2004-01 > 1073155930


From: CAROLYN EARLE <>
Subject: [BENHAM] Fwd: John Benham of Dorchester
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2004 10:52:16 -0800 (PST)


I thought you might like to see this. Maybe this can spark some discussion in this new year!


--- Stephen Benham wrote:
> Date: Tue, 30 Dec 2003 16:09:02 +0000

> Dear Carolyn
>
> I have only got fairly old email addresses for you,
> so I hope you won't
> mind if I send this message to all of them, with
> apologies if you
> receive all three copies.
>
> I've been considering John Benham of Dorchester over
> the Christmas
> period, and going back to basics. Please don't think
> that I am
> questioning your work. Well I am in a way, but only
> for clues to put
> John Benham in his English context.
>
> For starters, what is the evidence that he was born
> in Dorchester,
> England, over and above having been a freeman of
> Dorchester (MA)? To be
> completely provocative, is there any chance that
> after he moved from
> Dorchester (MA) to New Haven (CT), his descendants
> started confusing
> that Dorchester with Dorchester, England?
>
> I've read on some webpages there was a sizable
> contingent of West
> Country folk (Devon, Dorset, Somerset) on the
> Winthrop fleet of 1630,
> including Rev. John White, one of the leading
> lights, the conforming
> Puritan vicar of Dorchester (Dorset). On this basis,
> and because it is
> the only well-known Dorchester, I imagine that most
> people take
> "Dorchester, England" to mean the county town of
> Dorset. However there
> is another, much smaller Dorchester which I think
> may be a more likely
> candidate. This is the Oxfordshire parish of
> Dorchester, see
>
,
>
> in the valley of the Thames, just by the confluence
> of the Thame.
>
> For starters, Benham simply isn't a Dorset name.
>
> Benham is native to northwest Hampshire and west
> Berkshire, between say
> the towns of Andover and Basingstoke in Hampshire
> and Reading and
> Hungerford in Berkshire, spilling over the county
> boundary into
> neighbouring parishes in Wiltshire, and up the
> Thames towards Abingdon
> and Oxford, which would include Dorchester (Oxon).
> While there are no
> pre-1858 wills (when civil probate started in
> England and Wales) from
> the parish of Dorchester itself, there are twelve
> Benham wills dated
> 1595-1740 from the surrounding parishes of Clifton
> Hampden, Marsh Baldon
> and Toot Baldon. These twelve wills are going to be
> my late Christmas
> present to myself. In fact Clifton Hampden had
> anciently been a chapelry
> of the parish of Dorchester (Oxon).
>
> Incidently, Benhams from Clifton Hampden went on to
> found Benham & Co.
> of London, catering equipment manufacturers, and
> Benham & Sons of
> Colchester, publishers, the two most prominent
> British Benham
> enterprises (both unfortunately now part of larger
> groups), as well as
> Benham & Froud, copperware manufacturers, and one of
> the early Benham
> families in South Australia. Carrying on from Benham
> & Co. and Benham &
> Froud, I see that your no. 234, Darius Benham is the
> Benham in Benham &
> Whitney of NY, tinware manufacturers. The Glen Cove
> City website has an
> article on them as Benham & Stoutenborough, see
> . Perhaps kitchenware
> is in the genes.
>
> I gather that the Winthrop Fleet and the New Haven
> colony each had a
> strong Puritan / non-conformist element. Rev. John
> White, one of the
> leading lights, is described as the conforming
> Puritan vicar of
> Dorchester (Dorset), and John Davenport and Opilus
> Eaton, with whom John
> Benham and others took over Quinnipiac in 1639 to
> found New Haven (CT),
> are described as
> Puritans. So I suppose that it is quite likely that
> John Benham was that
> way inclined. Interestingly, a century and a half
> later the Benham
> family of Clifton Hampden above, were also
> protestant dissenters, and
> their births were being recorded in Dr Williams's
> Library in London.
> This library is named after Dr Daniel Williams
> (c.1643-1716), a
> Presbyterian minister, and one of its aims was that
> for a small fee it
> kept a 'central registry' of births mainly (but not
> solely) within
> non-conformist families to avoid the necessity of
> having to have a child
> baptised in the Anglican church. So both John Benham
> and the Benham
> family of Clifton Hampden were non-conformist at a
> time when the vast
> bulk of the population were conforming Anglicans.
> Hardly a smoking gun,
> but suggestive nevertheless.
>
> I am also intrigued by your reference to
> Clerkenwell, which may help
> distinguish between the two Dorchesters. I've not
> found a Clerkenwell at
> either Dorchester among what's available online over
> Christmas, but I'll
> have more to look at after the New Year. There isn't
> a Clerkenwell in
> Dorchester (MA), is there?
>
> This email basically boils down to two questions,
> which I hope you'll
> forgive me for putting bluntly:
>
> (i) What is the evidence for Clerkenwell?
> (ii) What is the evidence for Dorchester?
>
> I'm not saying that Dorset is wrong and Oxfordshire
> is right. But I
> would be very interested to know what evidence there
> is, for and against.
>
>
> By the way (i), Ira Benham, son of no. 663, George
> Howard Benham
> (1865-1933) is commemorated in the Ira Benham
> Resource Centre of the
> Hubbard County (MN) historical and genealogical
> societies, see
> .
>
> And, finally, by the way (ii), there is a mistake
> with your no. 5, John
> Benham (1664-1744) in the copy of your file that you
> sent me (dated
> about June 2002). You have probably already spotted
> and corrected it by
> now. The third paragraph says: "He gave land in West
> village to his son
> Ebenezer on May 23, 1776". This is 23 years after
> John Benham had died,
> and 15 years after Ebenezer his son (1703-1761) had
> died. Must be a
> different John and Ebenezer.
>
> All the best for the new year.
>
> Yours sincerely
>
> Stephen Benham
> (not knowingly related, but working on it)
>
> PS. I lied ... By the way (iii). Is anything known
> about Anan Benham,
> said to have been emigrated to Maryland on the Ark
> or the Dove in 1633?
> I guess that he is the same person as "Anem Bendin"
> on Ms. Hodge's list,
> . Is he
> known to have left
> descendants? I haven't noticed anyone claiming to be
> descended from him,
> while John Benham of Dorchester seems almost to be
> the father of a nation.
>


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