Winnington and Wennington

This study was started by Naomi Tarrant trying to find the birth of one of her 4X great grandfathers, Edward Winnington. This search has led to a lot of information but not solved my problem

The main variant is Wennington which is often a spelling mistake or transcription error, and may have occurred because of the pronunciation of the name. Wennington is though a name in its own right with a distinct locus for the start of the name. 

Winnington  is found in several places in England which suggest it derives from something fairly common such as Winn's Tun (Winna's farm). There are manors, hamlets or farms noted in Cheshire, Shropshire, Lancashire, Cornwall, Essex and Cambridgeshire, so the name has possible multiple starting points.  There are variations in spelling, replacing the i with a y, using a double or a single n and occasionally leaving out the g.

Wennington in north Lancashire appears to be the centre of this version of the name.  There was a manor here in Domesday owned by William de Wennington in the 14th century, who is probably not, but maybe, related to the William de Winnington in Cheshire.  The present village of Wennington is on the Skipton to Carnforth line and has a splendid Victorine Gothic hall now a special needs school. 

The main medieval family is found in Cheshire where the manor of Winnington was held by William de Wynington in the early 13th century, according to the Cheshire historians Lysons, Ormerod and Earwacker.  The Winningtons married into the other small manorial families in the county, various sons acquiring manors in Leftwich, Birches, Offerton and the Hermitage.  The main line of Winnington of Winnington left the county in 1632 when Lawrence Winnington sold the manor and moved to London to be a lawyer.  The sorting out of these early families is difficult as the occurrence of similar first name in father and son without firm dates confuses things.  The Visitations of Cheshire of 1580 and 1630 are very unreliable as there are no dates and they contradict each other in some instances.  For the present no attempt has been made to sort out these early families.

The name is not very common with approximately 80 found in the 1881 census for England and Wales and 1 in Scotland.

The most complete family tree is that for the descendants of Sir Francis Winnington, Solicitor General of England from 1675. and can be found in Burke's Peerage, Baronetage etc  His antecedents are rather unclear as according to the History of Parliament he was born in 1634, the only son of John Winnington of Chester but there are other slightly different stories. The main residence of this family has always been in Worcestershire at Stanford Court. A branch of the family inherited property from an Ingram and are known as Winnington-Ingram, including a Bishop of London, Arthur Foley Winnington-Ingram (1858-1946), and others are found in Canada.

The main group of Winnington families is found in Cheshire in the Northwich area where the manor of Winnington was located.  There are records of Winningtons owning salt pans in the 17th century but it is difficult to know if they are descendants of the medieval families or have taken the name from where they live.  They account for the majority of Winningtons in the 1881 census.  It is to this group that Alan Winnington (1910-1983), Asian correspondent for the Daily Worker, and his brother Richard Winnington (1905-1953) the film critic and cartoonist belong.

The manor of Winnington in Cornwall is in the parish of Gunwalloe. It is probable that Robert Winnington comes from here.  He was a privateer in the Francis Drake mode, who attacked a group of Hanseatic merchant ships in 1449 when England was having trouble with this influential groups of merchants, for which he was severely rebuked by Parliament. There do not appear to be any Winningtons in the area in more recent times.

There is Winnington townland in Co.Wexford, Ireland, mentioned in a lease of 1788, which is now known as Winningtown. Sorting out the Winningtons in Ireland is proving difficult due to dearth of records. There are odd references to late 17th and early 18th century Winningtons in Dublin and Belfast but by the late 18th century the name is so far found only in Belfast, Antrim, Down and Armagh, mainly associated with the linen industry or brass foundries.   Five family trees from the early 19th century have been reconstructed but there is no obvious connection between them although it is difficult to believe they are not related to each other.  At least one member emigrated to the USA and one family worked in Scotland for a while.

Wennington

The Wennington families found in the Furness peninsula of Lancashire most probably came from the area round the village of that name in north Lancashire. They appear to have died out in the mid-19th century but are recorded from at least the late 16th century.

The Winningtons of Wensleydale are most likely to be from this area too.  There are records of them in the dale from the mid-17th to the mid-19th when the last male member moved to Lancashire.

Related to these two groups are the Winningtons of Bowes and Barningham.  From this group Jonathan Winnington's descendants became Wenningtons, many working in the coal mines in and around Durham.  They are the main group in the 1881 census and it remains so today.  At least one member went to the USA.

The Future

Move records are being released all the time and the stray Winningtons and Wenningtons from other parts of the UK are gradually being added to the miscellaneous information collected in the hope of fitting them into one of the main groups.  

If you are interested in, or have a family connection to, a Winnington or Wennington family please contact me as I have several trees, but no plans at present to create a website or upload to FamilySearch or similar

DNA has not been attempted as my descent is from a 3 times great grandmother.

An earlier look at this project can be found in the Journal of the Guild:

Winnington or Wennington, JOONS, vol.11, pp26-27, (July-Sept 2013).