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It was sold by his descendant, also Thomas Fownes, in 1745 for £12,500 to Julines Beckford, son of a rich Jamaican plantation owner. Beckford remodelled the house and developed the grounds, creating a lake by damming the River Iwerne. He was MP for Salisbury for 10 years and Sheriff of Dorset for 1749–50. On his death in 1764 the property passed to his only son Peter Beckford (1740-1811), who married Hon. Louisa Pitt (1754–1791), the daughter of the British diplomat and politician George Pitt, 1st Baron Rivers (1721–1803) and Penelope Atkins. Peter's grandson, George Pitt-Rivers, 4th Baron Rivers, let the house to Sir John Hadley D'Oyly, and Lord Rivers' last surviving daughter eventually sold the house in 1917 to Sir Randolph Baker. Since then it has passed through several ownerships and still remains in private hands. [edit] GovernanceIwerne Stepleton was originally a parish in the Pimperne Hundred, one of the hundreds or early subdivisions of the county of Dorset. From 1894 until 1974 it was part of the Blandford Rural District. In 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, all urban and rural districts across England were abolished and counties were reorganized into metropolitan and non-metropolitan districts. Iwerne Stepleton joined the non-metropolitan North Dorset District. Under another set of local government reforms adopted on 1 April 2019, North Dorset District was abolished, and the County of Dorset (excluding Bournemouth Christchurch and Poole) became a single unitary authority. The area is now administered by Dorset Council. [edit] Dorset Research TipsOne of the many maps available on the website A Vision of Britain through Time is one from the Ordnance Survey Series of 1900 illustrating the parish boundaries of Dorset at the turn of the 20th century. This map blows up to show all parishes and many of the small villages and hamlets. The internal boundaries on this map are the rural districts which are indicated in WeRelate's "See Also" box for the place concerned (unless it is an urban parish). The following websites have pages explaining their provisions in WeRelate's Repository Section. Some provide free online databases. Some are linked to Ancestry.
[edit] CensusesUK censuses are taken every ten years in the years ending in "1". There was no census in 1941. Details are not made available for 100 years after a census. A number of online databases (both paid and free) provide transcriptions of censuses up to 1911. Most of these provide information for an individual or a family. Many also provide images of the originals and thus allow browsing of a page or perhaps a whole enumeration district. The 1921 census was published in January 2022. It is available at FindMyPast with a charge additional to the usual subscrition to view the manuscript entries (there is no extra charge to view the index). The Dorset Online Parish Clerks provides a good number of 19th century census transcriptions as well as lists of baptisms, marriages and burials as recorded in the parish. The formal Home Office Numbers (those starting with HO used in 1841 and 1851), the Registrar General Numbers (starting with RG in later decades, and the Enumeration District Numbers are included. There is an illustrated article to introduce each parish. The 1841 census differed from the later ones in two different ways.
From 1851 onwards people were asked for the county and civil parish in which they were born whether in or out of the county, and ages were expressed exactly (in months for infants). |