More wool is now worked up by the aid of the power-looms and combing machines at Ashburton and Buckfastleigh than in the old prosperous times.
J. DUNNING, FIRST LORD ASHBURTON
Ashburton's most distinguished son was John Dunning, first Baron Ashburton. He belonged to a respectable family, originally seated in Walkhampton parish, which, though not bearing an armorial coat, was yet above the class of yeomen. His father, John Dunning, settled as an attorney at Ashburton, where the future Lord Ashburton was born in 1731.[30] John Dunning the elder had as one of his clients Sir Thomas Clarke, Master of the Rolls, who owned a good deal of property about Ashburton. A legal instrument drawn up by the young Dunning when only nineteen, and sent to Sir Thomas, struck the Master of the Rolls as being so well done that he undertook the charge of fitting him for a career at the bar; and under this patron's auspices young Dunning, in the twenty-first year of his age, entered the Middle Temple in 1752.
It was whilst keeping his terms that Dunning made acquaintance with Horne Tooke, who addressed to him in 1778 his Letter on the English Particle, which was later expanded into The Diversions of Purley. After four years of study Dunning was called to the bar, and for five weary years after that his prospects remained in a most unpromising condition. He was a very ugly man, stunted in growth, his limbs misshapen, and his features mean. Horne Tooke used to tell a story illustrative of his personal appearance. On one occasion Thurlow wished to see him privately, and going to the coffee-house he frequented, asked the waiter if Mr. Dunning were there. The waiter, who was new to the place, said he did not know him. "Not know him!" exclaimed Thurlow with his usual volley of oaths. "Go into the room upstairs, and if you see a gentleman like the knave of clubs, call him down." The waiter departed, and returned with Dunning.
On one occasion he was retained in an assault case, and his object was to disprove the identity of the person named by an old woman as the aggressor. Abandoning his usual overbearing demeanour towards witnesses, he commenced his cross-examination thus, mildly:—
"Pray, my good woman, what sized man was he?"
"Short and stumpy, sir; almost as small as your honour."
"Humph! What sort of a nose had he?"