DUNCUMB, George (c.1607-74), of Shalford, Surr.

Duncumb’s grandfather, Roger Duncombe of Lidlington, was recorded as armigerous in the 1566 visitation of Bedfordshire, although Roger’s immediate forebears had lived for at least three generations in Buckinghamshire.18Vis. Surr. (Harl. Soc. xliii), 201. In 1600 Duncumb’s father, George senior, who made ‘a fair fortune’ as an attorney, married a Surrey gentlewoman and subsequently settled at Weston in Albury in that county, acquiring several other manors south east of Guildford and temporary shares in ironworks at Dunfold Hammer and Burningfold.19IGI (Wonersh par. reg.); Aubrey, Nat. Hist. Surr. iv. 75; VCH Surr. ii. 273; ii. 73-4, 93, 152, 347. Of his twelve children, his eldest son, John (1605-40) married Mary, sister of Sir Richard Onslow*, cementing links with the family of this prominent Surrey gentleman.20Aubrey, Nat. Hist. Surr. iv, 75; St Nicholas, Cranley, par. reg.

As a second son who also prospered, the MP appears to have followed in his father’s footsteps as an attorney through Clifford’s Inn; although admitted in 1623 to the Inner Temple, he was not called to the bar.21I. Temple Admissions Database. The professional and public careers of the two George Duncumbs are difficult to distinguish. The trustee in 1620 of the dowager countess of Arundel and the esquire made a commissioner for sewers in Surrey in July 1632 must have been the father; it was probably the father who in December 1638 was clerk of the treasury of the court of common pleas.22VCH Surr. iii. 228; C181/4, f. 122; CSP Dom. 1638-9, p. 161. But some of the references to the George Duncumb involved in the later 1630s and the 1640s in collecting fines, providing counsel in suits and conducting Surrey business are probably to the son; he is more likely to have the steward of the manor of Woking acting for Lady Zouch in November 1646, even if George senior did not die until the following March.23SP16/29, f. 135; SP16/387, f. 105; SP16/390, f. 227; CSP Dom. 1637-8, p. 19; 1640-1, p. 237; Surr. Hist. Centre, LM/597; LM/COR/5/85; LJ viii. 446b, 475a . His prospects were already sufficiently good in the later 1620s to secure marriage with the daughter of a London alderman who was master of the Vintners’ Company at his death in 1629.24PROB11/155/315; Aldermen of London, ii. 58. Either father or son could have been the man at Clifford’s Inn assessed at £1,000 for the Committee for Advance of Money in May 1644.25CCAM, 379.

Given that the future MP held the rank of lieutenant-colonel of militia under Sir Richard Onslow in 1651, it is possible that he served under his brother-in-law when the latter commanded the militia in the campaigns of 1643-4.26CSP Dom. 1651, p. 531. George senior’s will, drafted after the death of his eldest son, affirmed continuing amity with the Onslows, albeit also with his ‘cousin’ Henry King, bishop of Chichester.27PROB11/200/442. The heir to Weston was John’s son, another George Duncumb (leading to further potential confusion), but the MP was already established at Shalford, a few miles to the west, and was accumulating property on his own account.28PROB11/344/547; VCH Suss. iv. 24; VCH Essex, iv. 252. He was the ‘George Duncombe junior’ who in March 1646 was added to the commission of the peace and almost certainly the man named as an elder for Godalming classis in February 1648.29C231/6, p. 41; Shaw, Hist. Eng. Church, ii. 433.

It is conceivable that Duncumb shared with Sir Richard Onslow, who was secluded at Pride’s Purge, a lack of enthusiasm for the commonwealth regime. The council of state considered the Surrey militia commissioners dilatory in raising troops to fight the Scots in July and August 1651, a reluctance the Onslowes were not unnaturally keen to emphasise after the Restoration.30CSP Dom. 1651, pp. 285, 373, 382; HMC 14th Rep. IX, 477-8. But it seems not to have harmed their standing. In September Onslow, fellow local grandee Sir Francis Stydolfe, George Duncumb and three of his brothers petitioned the Committee for Compounding* for rights in Albury manor granted by the late Thomas Howard, 21st earl of Arundel – evidently with eventual success, since George or his nephew and namesake (who died in April or May 1654) held courts there.31CCC 2472; VCH Surr. iii. 73; PROB11/234/188. The future MP was named an assessment commissioner in December 1652 and was an active justice of the peace in February 1655.32A. and O.; CSP Dom. 1655, p. 37.

Despite the wishes of central government – according to Onslow apologetics – Onslow and Duncumb were elected as county Members to the second protectorate Parliament, the latter apparently benefitting rather than otherwise from his connection with the former.33HMC 14th Rep. IX, 478. At the opening of the session Duncumb was placed on the privileges committee.34CJ vii. 424a. Three weeks later ‘Lieutenant-colonel Duncombe’, who evidently retained his militia commission, was given leave to go into the country for ten days (9 Oct. 1656), but he seems to have returned fairly promptly.35CJ vii. 436a. His experience as a sequestration commissioner may have lain behind his nomination to review the administration of the estates of papists and delinquents (22 Oct.), while commercial interests manifested by 1655 as master of a powder works near Guildford may have prompted his inclusion in discussions on improving revenue from forests (23 Oct.).36CJ vii. 444a, 444b; CSP Dom. 1655, p. 29. A nomination to consider petitions arising from drainage and improvement projects in the Isle of Axholme, Lincolnshire, followed on 22 December.37CJ vii. 472b. There was then a six-month gap before he again appeared in the Journal on a committee devising a bill to punish those who lived ostentatiously without visible estates or profession (17 June 1657).38CJ vii. 559b. Nonetheless, he was evidently engaged in proceedings at Westminster for at least part of this time, since he was listed as having voted for kingship on 25 March 1657.39The Narrative of the Late Parliament (1658), 22 (E.935.5)

In contrast, religious and educational matters dominated Duncumb’s handful of nominations in the second session of the Parliament. In January 1658 he was appointed in swift succession to discuss bills to curb non-residence of college heads in the universities and to reorganise parishes in Huntingdonshire for the better promotion of preaching, and was added to the committee for the maintenance of ministers.40CJ vii. 581a, 581b, 588a. This was to be his last parliamentary service.

At the end of August he was apparently still active in local affairs, signing with his son Francis and others a certificate of good conduct for a man mistakenly suspected of being a priest.41SP18/200, f. 95. He was again named lieutenant-colonel of the Surrey militia in July 1659 and a militia and assessment commissioner.42A. and O. Having accepted the king’s pardon on 28 May 1660, he was regularly nominated to collect subsidies thereafter.43CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 447; SR.

By the time he made his will in 1672, Duncumb had lost his two eldest sons, John and Francis, who had also married the daughters of a London alderman.44PROB11/344/547; Vis. Surr. (Harl. Soc. lx), 40. Francis, a barrister of the Inner Temple, had obtained a baronetcy in 1662.45CB. Duncumb, whose wealth had continued to grow, died late in 1674, leaving a generous maintenance for his widow and substantial legacies to his other children and many grandchildren.46PROB11/344/547. Francis’s son William had succeeded as second baronet but, unlike many of their distant cousins from Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire branches of the family, none of Duncumb’s immediate descendants sat in Parliament.47HP Commons 1660-1690; HP Commons 1690-1715.