John Docker

John Docker bio VII. JOHN DOCKER, of Newby Head and Howgill, "Statesman", was bap. at Morland, on the 19 July 1719. Like his brothers he received a good education but did not enter any of the professions. He inherited the family property and most of his father's effects. The latter included the Family Bible and a quaint old book, printed in 1577, dealing with miscellaneous subjects, such as The Duty of husband to wife, The Duty reversed, of parents to children, of children to parents, of Godliness, of Marriage, of Celibacy, of Anger, of Choler, of Wit, a companion in a morbid hour, of Love, Death, and the Life everlasting, etc. The family still have this book. John and his brothers, Robert and Lancelot, frequently inscribed their names on the margins of its pages. John's chief contribution reads as follows:-.

"John Docker is my name,.

England is my nation,.

Newby is my dwelling place,.

And Heaven my destination.".

This John enlarged the ancestral home, leaving the very old part undisturbed. Over the present entrance he carved these letters and date M: I: D. 1755. The letter M refers to his wife. She was Margaret, daughter of Thomas Camplin of Newby. She was baptized at Morland on the 25th March 1725, and was married there to John Docker on the 13 Nov. 1746. This lady seems to have been something of a character. One of her descendants writes; "Well might she live to 90 for never a Camplin liked work. They were all noted for trailing about, 'going from nowhere to do naught' and poor body (God rest her soul) she was never liked by the Dockers,who were ever a hard working clan, and she came as son's wife to the auld homeand sat 'primming' (do you know the word?) in a checked linen apron and white abbot shirt front with low bodice - the style of those days - and the down-trodden daughters of this noble house had to do the menial work of house and farm,for the brothers were galivanting at college and the lady-wife whom they despised in their hearts for being so lazy, sat useless in the 'nook' by the hearth fire, or by the ingle side, as they called it. She never killed herself with work, just died of old age, or, as we say, lived till she died." She died in November or December 1811 at the age of 86, in the home of her daughter, Elizabeth Nicholson, at Turnbank, a lonely farmhouse, about three miles from Newby, near Reagill. John Docker, who is remembered by his descendants as "auld Johnnie"died at Howgill and was buried at Morland on the 31 January 1779.[1]