The Heritage Bank has received some information about the Cowper- Coles family and their time at Ditcham. The family had owned the estate from the time of Henry VIII and the dissolution of the monasteries – and had lived there for over 300 years.
The short document that has been received shows the names of the family descendants from 1545 onwards, starting with John Cowper, with brief summaries of a number of them and some illustrations.
In 1762, the last male heir of the main line, Richard Cowper, died without children. In his will, he left the Ditcham Park estate to his cousin, John Coles, and descendants subsequently chose “Cowper”” as a first Christian name for a child, Cowper Phipps Coles, to honour the original family line. He achieved national fame as a brilliant Royal Navy inventor but tragically drowned in 1870 when his experimental ironclad ship, HMS Captain, capsized. His children duly decided to legally hyphenate his first and last name, permanently becoming the Cowper-Coles family, to keep the name of the extinct lineage alive.
The Heritage Bank is always pleased to learn about local families and connections with the community’s past. If you know of anyone who might have any information or be able to help in any way, please contact Doug Jones on 01730 231326 or use this website.
