biography text
Fownes belonged to an old Plymouth family, who began to acquire landed property towards the end of the seventeenth century, purchasing Nethway in 1696, and Kingswear, near Dartmouth, in 1717.1Trans. Dev. Assoc. lxxxv. 78-79. Returned for Dartmouth as a Tory in 1715, he is only recorded as voting once, against the septennial bill. In 1721 his name was sent to the Pretender as a probable supporter in the event of a rising.2Stuart mss 65/16. He did not stand again, dying 1 Oct. 1733. His elder son, Henry Fownes, married the daughter and heir of Alexander Luttrell.