As much as George Anson's ancestry has been covered in borrowed glory, his wife Margaret Dinning Anson's ancestry was shrouded. When we began our research into Margaret Dinning's bachground in 1999, we were not sure of anything about her life before she married George Anson in 1833. However, much has been discovered in the past few years, and Margaret’s life has come into sharper focus.
For many years, family lore was split on Margaret Dinning. One family story says that George Anson was disinherited for marrying her because she was poor and uneducated. This story has been dealt with in the George Anson FAQ (see Was George Anson Disinherited...?"). The second story says that she was the daughter of a Welsh shipmaster. Her son, Joseph Anson, told stories to his children and grandchildren about going on sea voyages with Margaret's family (44). Further research has disproven both of these family stories.
A biography of George Anson written in 1881 mentions that Margaret was from Bristol, England (45), and the 1841 British Census for Wolverhampton (46) notes that she was not born in the county of Staffordshire nor was she from Scotland, Ireland or foreign-born. Her gravestone gives her death date (47) as 15 April 1896 and her age as 82 years, 3 months, and 13 days. This would place her birthdate at 2 January 1814.
We can now say that Margaret was indeed born in Bristol, England. According to the baptismal records of Temple Church, Bristol, Margaret was baptized on 5 May 1816 (48). She was the second child and eldest daughter of William Dinning and his wife, Rachel Granville. Margaret had two siblings: older brother Joseph Strong Dinning (49), and younger sister Rachel Ann Dinning (50). Little is known of Joseph Strong Dinning other than he served as a witness to his sister Margaret’s marriage. Rachel Ann Dinning married at least twice and her descendants live in England to this day (51).
Margaret’s father, William Dinning, was the son of Strong Dinning and Margaret Watson (52). The Dinnings originally came from County Armagh, Ireland and probably came to Bristol in the early 1800s according to baptismal, marriage, and apprenticeship records found for several of their children (53). William was apprenticed to a chairmaker in Bristol in 1804 (54), when he was twelve years old (55). In 1816, he became a freeman of the city of Bristol, having served his full apprenticeship (56). He married Rachel Granville on 20 September 1812 (57), according to the marriage registers of St. Thomas Church, Bristol, England.
Rachel Granville was the daughter of William Granville, Sr., a carpenter (58). Her older brother, William Granville, Jr., was born in Plymouth, Devonshire, England (59). It is possible that Rachel was also born there or in Bristol, though no baptismal records for her have yet been found.
William and Rachel Dinning and their young family moved to Wolverhampton by 1824, when Margaret’s sister Rachel Ann was baptized in St. Peter’s Collegiate Church, the same church where Margaret and George Anson were married nine years later. In 1830, William Dinning was listed in a poll book for Stowbridge (Stourbridge), Worcestershire, as a voter in an election (60). Stourbridge and Wolverhampton were only eleven miles apart. By 1841, William and Rachel Dinning are listed as living in Wolverhampton (61). Sadly, Rachel Dinning would die in 1845 at the age of 49 (62). William remarried three months after Rachel’s death to Ann Greenwood Ensall, a widow (63). William’s fortunes seem to have gone downhill after Rachel’s death, as he and his second wife Ann are listed in the 1851 British census as inmates in the Wolverhampton workhouse (64). Ann died later that year, and William Dinning followed her in death in 1857 (65).
A collection of letters written to Margaret when she came to America has survived, and they give us some insight into her life (66). These letters were written by her uncle, Jack Thorington, a lawyer from Montgomery, Alabama. Jack Thorington was quite fond of his niece, and assisted the Anson family by sending them $50 checks from time to time. We have now been able to identify Jack Thorington as William Dinning’s youngest brother. According to Thorington family stories, William’s parents and siblings changed their name from Dinning to Thorington (67) after immigrating to America. George and Margaret named one of their sons John Thorington Anson (68) in honor of Margaret’s paternal uncle. The Dinning-Thorington family story is quite an intriguing one, and we will be adding another page about this family soon.
Rachel Granville Dinning’s brother, the Reverend William Granville, also immigrated to America in 1817. He, too, became a benefactor of the Ansons after their arrival in America in 1848-49. According to the 1850 census (69), George and Margaret Anson lived only a few houses away from Rev. Granville and his wife, Elizabeth in Medina, Ohio. When Rev. Granville died in 1856, he left an annuity to the Ansons (70). George and Margaret would name two of their sons Granville, likely in gratitude for the help they received from Margaret’s maternal uncle. Unfortunately, neither Granville Anson survived to adulthood.
After George Anson’s death in 1889, Margaret lived in Quasqueton, Iowa with her eldest son, William George, and his family. In 1895, William George decided to relocate to Rolla, Phelps County, Missouri, where Margaret died the following year, on April 15, 1896 (71). William George made sure she was buried in the family plot (72) in the Quasqueton cemetery, next to her husband, George, and her grandson, Willard.
From the six children of George and Margaret Anson who survived to adulthood, there are now more than 700 descendants throughout the United States and Canada.
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