Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 16.djvu/189

 his letter to John Ellis, ''Addit. MS''. 28930, f. 24).



DUNCON, SAMUEL (fl. 1600–1659), political writer, was a citizen of Ipswich, of considerable means, and devoted to the parliamentary side in the civil wars. In 1640 he was ‘strayed three times’ for refusing to pay ship-money. He was ordered to march with the king's forces against the Scots; but he was allowed, after some troublesome negotiations, to hire a substitute. Processes were also begun against him in the commissaries' court and the court of arches. This caused him to repair several times to London, and led finally to his being ‘damnified about 300l.’ Duncon complained to the parliament, but without result. When the civil war broke out he as well as his father and father-in-law aided the parliament with many contributions, by raising troops (which brought him into direct communication with Cromwell), and by acting as high collector of assessments till 1651. Duncon seems finally to have settled in London, and to have died about the time of the Restoration. Duncon wrote: The chief end of these tracts is (besides the recital of the author's sacrifices for the Commonwealth) towards the ‘settling of peacemakers in every city and county of this nation.’ These peacemakers were to be the ‘most understanding plain honest-harted men’ that the people of the district could find. Their function was to be to settle all sorts of disputes, and thus avoid as far as possible the necessity for law courts (see, Lives of the Chancellors, viii. 359, for a somewhat similar scheme proposed by Lord Brougham).
 * 1) ‘Several Propositions of publick concernment presented to his Excellency the Lord Generall Cromwell,’ 1651.
 * 2) ‘Several Proposals offered by a Friend to Peace and Truth to the serious consideration of the keepers of the Liberties of the People of England,’ &c., 1659.



DUNCUMB, JOHN (1765–1839), topographer, born in 1765, was the second son of Thomas Duncumb, rector of Shere, Surrey. He was educated at a school in Guildford, under a clergyman named Cole, and at Trinity College, Cambridge. He proceeded B.A. in 1787, and M.A. in 1796. In 1788 he settled at Hereford in the dual capacity of editor and printer of Pugh's ‘Hereford Journal.’ Two years later he accepted an engagement from Charles, eleventh duke of Norfolk, the owner, jure uxoris, of extensive estates in the county, to compile and edit a history of Herefordshire. The terms were 2l. 2s. per week for collecting materials, with extra payment for journeys out of the county, the work to be the property of the duke. The first volume, containing a general history of the county and account of the city, was published, 4to, Hereford, 1804; and the first part of a second volume, containing the hundreds of Broxash and Ewyas-Lacy, with a few pages of Greytree hundred, in 1812. At the death of the duke in December 1815 the supplies stopped and Duncumb ceased to work. The unsold portions of the work, with the pages of Greytree hundred then printed but not published, being part of the duke's personal estate, were removed from Hereford to a warehouse in London, in which place the parcels remained undisturbed and forgotten until 1837, when the whole stock was purchased by Thomas Thorpe, the bookseller, who disposed of his copies of vols. i. and ii. with the pages of Greytree (319–58), to which he appended an index. After p. 358, vol. ii. was completed with index in 1866 by Judge W. H. Cooke, who issued a third volume containing the remainder of Greytree in 1882. A fourth volume will include the parishes in the hundred of Grimsworth. A useful supplement to Duncumb and Cooke's history is George Strong's ‘Heraldry of Herefordshire,’ fol., London, 1848 (, preface to vol. i.;, postscript to vol. ii. p. 401, preface to vol. iii.).

Duncumb's connection with the local newspaper ceased in 1791, when he entered into holy orders. He was instituted to the rectory of Tâlachddû in Brecknockshire in 1793 (Gent. Mag. vol. lxiii. pt. ii. p. 1219), and to Frilsham, Berkshire, in the same year. In 1809 he became rector of Tortington, Sussex, but resigned the living soon afterwards on his institution to Abbey Dore, Herefordshire (ib. vol. lxxix. pt. ii. p. 778), the Duke of Norfolk being the patron of both benefices. In 1815 he obtained the vicarage of Mansel-Lacy, Herefordshire, from Mr. (afterwards Sir) Uvedale Price (ib. vol. lxxxv. pt. i. p. 561), and held both these Herefordshire benefices at his death.

Duncumb was secretary to the Herefordshire Agricultural Society from its formation in 1797, and published in 1801 an ‘Essay on the Best Means of Applying Pasture Lands, &c., to the Production to Grain, and of reconverting them to Grass,’ 8vo, London. Another useful treatise was a ‘General View