DODINGTON, John (d. 1644), of Breamore, Hants.

Dodington’s family hailed from the parish of the same name in Somerset, where they were resident from at least the end of the fourteenth century. His grandfather, William Dodington†, a minor exchequer official, settled in west Hampshire in 1580, when he acquired the manor of Breamore, close to the border with Dorset and Wiltshire.12HP Commons 1558-1603. Following his suicide in 1600, he was succeeded by the MP’s father, Sir William Dodington†, a puritan of melancholic but charitable disposition, who cemented the family’s status in the county and extended its court connections through his marriage to a daughter of Secretary of state Sir John Herbert†. In the 1620s he and his two eldest sons sat in Parliament: he himself for Lymington in 1621; Sir William Dodington II† (d.1624) for Downton in 1624; and Herbert Dodington† (d.1632) for Lymington in 1626 and 1628. However, the third son, Henry, was executed in 1632 for the murder of his mother three years earlier.13C142/261/28; Add. 5524, f. 36v; PROB11/179/536; HP Commons 1604-1629.

John Dodington first appeared in public life in 1632, when he replaced his brother Herbert as lieutenant-colonel of the Hampshire militia.14Add. 26781, f. 22. Five years later his father arranged a marriage for him to a daughter of Sir Thomas Trenchard†, one of the wealthiest and most prominent members of the puritan gentry in Dorset.15Hutchins, Dorset, iii. 326; WARD7/95/136. In October 1638 he succeeded to his father’s substantial estate in Hampshire.16WARD7/95/136; C142/599/107?; PROB11/179/536; Cardiff Recs. iii. 512. Taking on also the latter’s function as colonel of the New Forest division, in spring 1639 he was involved in raising men to fight in the first bishops’ war.17Add. 26781, ff. 51, 58.

At a poll at Lymington on 7 March 1640, Dodington was returned to what became the Short Parliament. Family tradition doubtless contributed to his election for the first seat by unanimous consent of the voters, ahead of John Kemp*, who took the second place, and Richard Cooper.18Hants RO, 27M74/DBC2, f. 35. He made no recorded impression on the proceedings of the assembly, and was not re-elected in the autumn, although two brothers-in-law, Peregrine Hoby* and John Bulkeley*, were chosen elsewhere.

With the outbreak of civil war, Dodington supported the parliamentarian cause. Although never appointed to the commission of the peace, he was nominated to a number of other commissions, and served on the county committee in 1643 and 1644.19I.o.W. RO, OG/BB/463; NBC 45/16a, p. 427; Add. 24860, f. 53v; CSP Dom. 1644, p. 280. Illness probably prompted him to draw up his will in July 1644, when he affirmed that he did so, ‘knowing, acknowledging and professing that not any foreseen faith, works, merits of mine own or any other creature are one jot available to man’s justification’. He requested burial at Breamore near to his late wife, Anne, confided the education of his daughter, also Anne, to his mother-in-law, Lady Trenchard, and made numerous other bequests, including to his brothers-in-law Hoby and Bulkley. Dodington died sometime before 13 November, when the will was proved. His heirs were his daughter Anne, who later married Robert Greville, 4th Baron Brooke, and his younger brother and executor Edward Dodington.20PROB11/192/15; CP; VCH Hants, iv. 597, 601. Edward served on the Hampshire commission of the peace, but no further members of this branch of the family sat in Parliament.21The Names of the Justices (1650), 50 (E.1238.4).