Person:Philip Dingley (3)

Philip Dingley was baptised on 14th August 1603 at Cropthorne in Worcestershire. He appears to have been the youngest child of Elizabeth Dingley, formerly Bigge, and her husband Francis Dingley. Philip’s father owned the manor of Charlton in the parish of Cropthorne and was a man of some standing, serving as a Justice of the Peace, and he had been High Sheriff of Worcestershire in 1597.

On 2nd November 1621, aged 18, Philip matriculated into Brasenose College at the University of Oxford.

Philip’s father died in 1624. Philip was left his father’s roan gelding in his father’s will.

By 1628, Philip was married, although no record of his marriage, or indeed any other record which names his wife has yet been found. However, Philip and his wife appear to have settled in Cropthorne, having eight children baptised there between 1628 and 1651. They appear to have continued to live in the hamlet of Charlton, although probably not at the manor house Philip’s father had owned, which had been inherited by Philip’s older brother Henry’s descendants.

Philip’s mother died in 1632.

Philip lived through the turbulence of the Civil Wars through the 1640s, which saw the nearby city of Worcester besieged for two months in 1646 by Parliamentary forces, eventually forcing the Royalists who held the city to surrender.

In October 1649, a few months after the execution of King Charles I, a survey was taken of the lands owned by the Dean and Chapter of Worcester in the manor of Charlton. Philip is listed as holding several tracts of copyhold land at Charlton, including three houses and several pieces of farmland, totalling 2¼ acres of pasture, 4 acres of meadow and 56 acres of arable land in the common fields of the manor. He paid a rent of 31 shillings for this property.

It is not clear when Philip died. Presumably he was still alive in 1651 when his youngest son was baptised. The surviving Cropthorne registers are very patchy in the period of the Civil Wars and the Commonwealth which followed, with only two burials recorded between 1645 and 1661. It would seem that Philip died in this period. His two youngest sons, Samuel and Richard, both left Cropthorne to take up apprenticeships in London. When Samuel began his apprenticeship in July 1660 he was described as the son of Philip Dingley of Charlton, Worcestershire, gentleman, deceased.

It is also not clear when Philip’s wife died. She may well have also died in the period for which the surviving Cropthorne registers are deficient. Alternatively, if she lived to be at least into her eighties she may have been the “Mrs Dingley Widow” who was buried at Cropthorne on 26th March 1694.

1. ↑ Cropthorne, Worcestershire: Parish Register Transcript.

   1603 / Phillip the Sonne of Francis Dyngley esquire was baptized the xiiijth daye of Auguste 1603. suretyes S[i]r Phillipe Kightley and Mr Phi[li]ppe Biggs and the Lady Sands of Fladbury.

2.   Oxford University Alumni, 1500-1886.

   Dingley, Philip, of co. Worcester, arm. fil. nat. max. BRASENOSE COLL., matric. 2 Nov., 1621, aged 18; probably brother of Edward Dingley or Dineley 1616.

   Although this publication speculates that Philip and Edward were brothers, they appear to have actually been uncle and nephew (despite being very close in age) - Edward was the son of Philip's older brother Henry.

3.   The Parliamentary Survey of the Lands and Possessions of the Dean and Chapter of Worcester: Made in or about the Year 1649, in Pursuance of an Ordinance of Parliamentary for the Abolishing of Deans and Chapters (Commissioners for Survey of Church Lands, transcript published by Worcestershire Historical Society, 1924)
   Pages 29-30.

   Charlton, co. Wigorn.
   A Survey of the Manor of Charlton made Oct. 1649...
   PHILLIP DINGLEY, gent., by Copy holdeth 3 meses. with thappts. being 3½ yard land, consisting of 1 little parcel of meadow in Cropthorne Meadow cont. ab. 1 r., A parcel at the upper end of same called the Sturts cont. ab. 1 r., A parcel in Little Meadow cont. ab. 1 ac., A parcel in Great Meadow cont. ab. 1 ac., A ½ ac. and 2 little parcels cont. ab 1/6 ac. in same. Close of past. called Haywaye cont. ab. 1½ ac., Another called Nether Salleys cont. ab. 1½ ac., Another little close adj. cont. ab. ½ ac., Another shooting towards the river of Avon cont. ab. 1½ ac. Also ab. 56 ac. of ar. in the common fields. Rent 31s. Heriots 3. Total of ac., Mead. 2¼, Past. 4, Ar. 56. Worth above the rent £16 10 0.

4.   Philip presumably died between the baptism of his youngest son in 1651 and 1660, when he was described as deceased on his son Samuel's apprenticeship papers. If Philip had died at Cropthorne, the registers there are very patchy through the Civil War and Commonwealth period, with only two burials recorded between 1645 and 1661.