Joseph Damer, 1st Earl of Dorchester

Joseph Damer, 1st Earl of Dorchester (12 March 1718 – 1798) was a country landowner and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1741 to 1762 when he was raised to the peerage as Baron Milton. He was particularly associated with the reshaping of Milton Abbey and the creation of the village of Milton Abbas in Dorset, south-west England.

Early life

Damer was the eldest son of Joseph Damer MP of Winterbourne Came, and his wife Mary Churchill, daughter of John Churchill of Henbury, Dorset. He was from a wealthy family and his great-uncle was a money-lender in Ireland. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin in 1734–5. He married Lady Caroline Sackville, daughter of the 1st Duke of Dorset on 27 July 1742. ^[1]

Political career

Damer was returned as Member of Parliament (MP) for Weymouth in the 1741 general election at the age of 21. He was then returned for Bramber in the 1747 general election and Dorchester in the 1754 general election. Damer was created Baron Milton of Shrone Hill, Tipperary, Ireland on 30 May 1753 and Baron Milton of Milton Abbey on 10 May 1762.

Milton Abbey

Building

In 1751, Damar commissioned architect John Vardy to build him a London residence on Park Lane. He also purchased Milton Abbey and embarked on an ambitious project to reshape the surrounding valley. He replaced some existing buildings at the Abbey with a mansion house (designed initially by Varedy, then by Sir William Chambers, and completed by James Wyatt) for his own use. Landscape gardener Capability Brown was commissioned to remodel the surrounding grounds.

Milton Abbas main street

As a wealthy landowner Damer also set about the systematic removal of the neighbouring small town of Middleton and its residents. By 1780, most of the residents had been relocated to a new purpose-designed and built model village, Milton Abbas, approximately half a mile south-east of the Abbey; the town's school was moved to Blandford Forum, 7 miles (11 km) away. The original town was razed to the ground and landscaped, most of the site disappearing beneath a new ornamental lake.

Later life and legacy

Damar's wife Lady Caroline died on 24 March 1775 at the age of 57 and he commissioned the Italian sculptor Agostino Carlini to create a magnificent tomb to her memory in the Abbey Church. He was created first Earl of Dorchester and Viscount Milton in 1792. His Park Lane mansion then became known as The Dorchester. It was replaced by an Italianate building during the mid-19th century, but the name lives on as it is now the site of the Dorchester Hotel.

Damar died in 1798. He and his wife Caroline had three sons. The eldest, John, born in 1744, married the sculptor Anne Seymour Conway in 1767. She separated from him after seven years. Deep in debt, John Damer shot himself in 1776.^[2] The second son, George, born 1746, was also an MP and succeeded his father as Earl of Dorchester.

Notes

External links

• Joseph Damer and the town of Milton