His honeymoon must have been short, for exactly one week after his marriage Dunning brought forward in Committee of the House of Commons his famous motion, "That it is the opinion of this Committee that the influence of the Crown has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished." After a fierce debate he succeeded in carrying his motion by a majority of eighteen.
On the 15th March, 1782, a motion of want of confidence, though negatived by a majority of nine, proved fatal to the Administration, and the Premier resigned. Then, after twelve years passed in "the cold shade of opposition," the Whigs were again in power; and one of the first steps taken by the Marquess of Rockingham, who now became Prime Minister, was to reward John Dunning with a coronet. His patent of nobility bore date April 8th, 1782, and thus the misshapen but clever son of the little Ashburton attorney became the first Baron Ashburton. None when in opposition had denounced more vigorously, and with greater display of righteous indignation, the bestowal of pensions on a large scale; but no sooner had he passed out of the Opposition into place than he exacted for himself the enormous pension of £4000 per annum, a sum to him quite unnecessary, as he had amassed a huge fortune.
By this time, however, his health had begun to fail, and he died on August 18th, 1783, of paralysis, leaving a son, Richard Barré Dunning, to succeed him in the title, and to inherit a fortune of £180,000. The second Lord Ashburton married a daughter of William Cunninghame, of Lambshaw, and through her became allied with the Cranstoun family, to whom a large portion of his ample possessions passed at his death without issue in 1823.
Ashburton, in the Tudor period, seems to have possessed a school of wood-carving. The Churchwardens' Book shows that much work was done in the church between 1515 and 1525. An Exeter man named John Mayne was then employed in wood-carving, but there were Ashburton workmen as well. There was then erected a very fine screen. The rood-loft was removed in 1539, but not the screen itself till last century, when portions of it became the property of private persons, and others were laid as foundations to the galleries.
The side chapels seem also to have been screened in; and there was one Thomas Prideaux who was a liberal contributor to the beautification of the church. In one of the side chapels was a rich, canopied altar-piece with wings. When the chantries and chapels were destroyed, this was carried away by the son, Robert Prideaux, and employed for the decoration of his room. The central piece of the triptych has been lost, but the wings and the canopy remain. Some of the wood-carving of Henry the Seventh's reign in and about Ashburton is of the very finest quality, quite unsurpassed in its style. Work by apparently the same hand may be seen at Fulford in the hall.
In Ashburton stands a quaint slated house-front with the pips on cards cut in slate ornamenting the front. The old ring to which the bull was attached for baiting still remains where was the ancient bull-ring of the town. Ashburton was, as already said, originally composed of two manors—one royal, the other episcopal—and each had its portreeve. The King's Bridge united them, and the river divided one from the other. This was a relic of pre-Saxon times, when the chief of the land and the ecclesiastical chief had their separate establishments. At a later period Ashburton passed wholly into the hands of the Bishop of Exeter. Bishop Oldham, 1504-1519, was a benefactor to the church, and gave it a lectern with an owl, his symbol, supporting the desk. This owl was sold to Bigbury, along with the handsome pulpit. Holne pulpit is very similar to that formerly in Ashburton.
OLD OAK CARVING, ASHBURTON