John Dunn-Gardner
John Dunn-Gardner (20 July 1811 – 11 January 1903), of Soham Mere and of Chatteris House, Isle of Ely, in Cambridgeshire (born as John Margetts, known as John Townshend from 1823–43 and styled by the courtesy title Earl of Leicester from 1823–43, known as John Dunn-Gardner from 1843-death) was a British politician and landowner. From his birth until his de-legitimization in 1843 he was the eldest legal son and heir apparent of George Townshend, 3rd Marquess Townshend (1778-1855), who was not however his biological father. He is otherwise notable in relation to the  tangled marital history of his mother, the Marchioness Townshend. Origins. He was born on 20 July 1811 as "John Margetts", the eldest surviving natural son of John Margetts, a brewer from St Ives, by his mistress (or bigamous wife) Sarah Dunn-Gardner (d.1858), (Marchioness Townshend), wife of George Townshend, 3rd Marquess Townshend (1778-1855), and only surviving daughter and heiress of William Dunn-Gardner (d.1831) of Chatteris House, Isle of Ely, Cambridgeshire. By law until his de-legitimization in 1843 he was deemed the eldest son and heir of 3rd Marquess Townshend, as his mother's marriage was never annulled . On 26 December 1823 when aged 12, his mother had him baptised with the name "John Townshend" at St. George's, Bloomsbury, and he adopted the use of the courtesy title Earl of Leicester, his legal father's subsidiary title. However all the children borne to his mother during her marriage were declared illegitimate by a private Act of Parliament in 1843, whereupon John assumed as his surname his mother's maiden name of Dunn-Gardner. Career. He was a Conservative Member of Parliament for Bodmin from 1841 to 1847, and served as a Justice of the Peace, a Deputy  Lieutenant, and as High Sheriff of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire in 1859. In 1872, having inherited his maternal estates, John Dunn-Gardner was the sixth largest landowner in Cambridgeshire, ranking after the Earl of Hardwicke, the Duke of Bedford, John Walbanke Childers MP, the Duke of Rutland and William Hall. He was the second largest landowner to be resident principally in Cambridgeshire, and owned , or about 0.7% of all land in that county. Sarah, Marchioness Townshend. Sarah and her husband married on 12 May 1807, and were known as Lord and Lady Chartley, a courtesy title from his grandfather, the 1st  Marquess Townshend. In September 1807, on the death of the 1st Marquess, the couple became the Earl and Countess of Leicester, also a courtesy title. They separated a few months later, in May 1808, without having produced issue, and she filed an ecclesiastical suit for annulment, alleging non-consummation of the marriage, i.e. that the couple had never had sex. While the suit was still pending, Lady Leicester eloped with John Margetts, a brewer, and married him in a bigamous ceremony at Gretna Green in October 1809. They had several children. Her first marriage was never dissolved, which became a  legal problem for the succession of the Townshend peerages. In 1811 her legal husband became the 3rd Marquess Townshend, but after leaving him, she did not use his name for over a decade, calling herself Mrs. Margetts; and Margetts gave his surname to their children. Sarah survived both men: Margetts died in 1842, and Marquess Townshend died abroad in December 1855. She remarried a few weeks after her legal widowhood, to James Laidler on 10 January 1856, and died on 11 September 1858. Settling of Dunn-Gardner estate in 1831. In August 1831 (three months before his death) Sarah's  father William Dunn-Gardner (formerly "William Dunn") of Chatteris House, Isle of Ely, Cambridgeshire, bequeathed the estate of Soham Mere, bought with the funds he had settled on his daughter and her husband, to his eldest natural grandson then known as "John Townshend" (later John Dunn-Gardner), described in 1863 as a stranger in blood under the law. However, at the time (1831), John was his legitimate grandson, as he was born to his daughter within wedlock (albeit not fathered by her husband). William Dunn-Gardner apparently bequeathed the estate by name to ensure that his grandson would not be  disinherited by any future legal steps taken by the Townshend family, which in fact happened in 1842. Soham Mere was given to John's younger brother William Dunn-Gardner, of Fordham Abbey (purchased by William Dunn-Gardner in 1808), and descended in the family until 1974 when it was sold to the present owner. De-legitimization in 1843. Sarah, Lady Townshend, and John Margetts had several children besides John who bore the surname "Margetts" until 26 December 1823, when there was a wholesale christening under the surname "Townshend", but they were all declared illegitimate by a private Act of Parliament  passed in 1843 at the request of the Townsend family. (One child, being a minor and having no legal guardian, was exempted from the act's provisions, but was similarly excluded from succession to the peerage by a second private bill as soon as he came of age.) John himself was at the time a Member of Parliament, and after the passing of the Act he assumed his mother's surname of Dunn-Gardner. Dunn-Gardner family. The Dunn-Gardner family was descended from William Dunn-Gardner (d.1831) (born "William Dunn") and his wife the heiress Jane Gardner (d.1839), who  married in 1783 and had an only surviving daughter and heiress Sarah Dunn-Gardner (Marchioness Townshend). Jane Gardner was herself the only surviving child and heir of John Gardner (d.1804) of Chatteris House who married his cousin, the daughter and heiress of John Marriott of Chatteris House by his wife Barbara Johnstone, sister of his mother. When John Gardner died in 1804, his son-in-law William Dunn was obliged under the will to change his name to Dunn-Gardner to inherit Chatteris House and the other Gardner estates. "Burke's Peerage" states that the grandson "John Townshend" / John Dunn -Gardner inherited Chatteris in 1839, after his maternal grandmother Jane Gardner had died in that year. Although "A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain" (1862) fails to mention Mr Dunn-Gardner's parentage (as the eldest natural son of the brewer John Margetts and his bigamous spouse Sarah Dunn-Gardner (Marchioness Townshend), it mentions that he had two surviving brothers (William and Cecil) and two sisters. The "Townshend Peerage Case" gives details of all the children fathered by John Margetts: Marriages and children. John Dunn-Gardner married twice: Death. Dunn-Gardner died on 11 January  1903, when resident at 37 Grosvenor Place, London.