Dennys Family of Tiverton

The Dennyses were a prominent Tiverton Dissenting family for whom Eliza Gould [later Flower] served as a governess, 1792-94.  Nicholas Dennys (1752-1840) came to Exeter from London in 1772 to work in the woolen trade, eventually joining with William Smale to form the firm of Smale and Dennys. In 1778 Dennys married Lucy Lardner (1753-1849) of Wandsworth, Surrey, daughter of William Lardner, surgeon; she was the sister of James Lardner.  In 1778 the Dennyses purchased the Ashley estate, near Tiverton, where their five children were born: Nicholas (1781-1868); Lucy (b. 1782); Belfield (b. 1783); Frances (b. 1787); and Lardner (1791-1864) (Burke 201). Both Smale and Dennys were Dissenters, attending the Steps (Independent) Meeting House, where Flower worshiped during his time in Tiverton.  John Gabriel Stedman (1744-97) also attended the Steps Meeting. His Journal records numerous meetings with Dennys, Smale, and Flower, all of whom participated in local efforts for Parliamentary reform during the 1780s and early 1790s. Ashley, the Dennys’s home, lay on the outskirts of Tiverton; it was once part of Ashley Park, a 1600-acre preserve dating back to the reign of Henry VIII. The house, unfortunately, collapsed in late 1794 (Thompson, Journal 361), which explains the recent building projects mentioned by Eliza.  The Dennyses had rebuilt Ashley at least once prior to 1794. According to Dunsford’s Historical Memoirs, during the late 1780s Smale and Dennys purchased large tracts of land in and around Bolham, a neighboring village to Tiverton (284).  In 1791 Dennys joined with Thomas Heathfield (a prominent mill-owner in Sheffield), Smale, and James Lardner to build a cotton mill in Tiverton (Thompson, Journal 336).  Smale died on 4 August 1792, not long after the opening of the Tiverton mill.  In 1798 Dennys joined with Heathfield, Richard Lardner, Henry Dunsford and several others in creating a new business called Heathfield, Dennys and Co.  Three years later Nicholas Dennys retired, the business now becoming Heathfield, Lardner and Company (Harding 1.202).   Nicholas Dennys was still listed in 1805 as a “manufacturer of woollen goods” in Tiverton (Holden’s [1805]: 2.276), but not long afterward he experienced severe financial setbacks. In February 1809, he and his family left Tiverton for Teignmouth to join James Lardner, who had already moved there.  Nicholas Dennys died at Teignmouth in 1840. See Martin Dunsford, Historical Memoirs of the Town and Parish of Tiverton, in the County of Devon (Exeter: T. Brice, 1790), 255-58; Stanbury Thompson, ed.,  Journal of John Stedman, 1744-1797 (London:  Mitre, 1962), 298, 304, 307, 313, 333, 337, 386, and 397).