There is some confusion over the origins of the Ashburnham family, writers have suggested that they may have been an Anglo Saxon family who were in England before the Norman conquest. There was, for example, a Bertram Ashburnham in charge of Dover castle at the time of the Conquest and Camden described the Ashburnham family as being of "great antiquity". However, the Domesday Book indicates that the owner of Ashburnham before the Conquest was actually someone called Siward. The post-Conquest record is that the lord who held Ashburnham from the Tenant-in-chief, Robert, Earl of Eu, was Robert de Cruel and it is probably from this Cruel that the real Ashburnham line began. Their arrival in England would have been from Normandy, during the Conquest, at a place now called Creully in the arrondissement of Caen. The baronetcy itself, was created in 1691 with the first baronet being Denny Ashburnham. William Ashburnham was the son of Sir Charles Ashburnham, the 3rd baronet of Bromham, Guestling, Sussex. William succeeded to the title as 4th Baronet Ashburnham, on 3 October 1762. He married Margaret daughter of Thomas Pelham of Lewes, in Guestling and had a son William who became the M.P. for Hastings.
Education
Ashburnham matriculated in 1728 and then went on to study at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge where he received a B.A. in 1732–1733. William Ashburnham was elected a fellow of Corpus Christi in 1733–1735, received his M.A. in 1739, and granted DD in 1749.
Career
Ashburnham was ordained 1733 and appointed chaplain to the Royal Hospital Chelsea in 1741. The following year, 1742 he became Vicar of St PeterBexhill, Sussex. He was made Dean of Chichester in 1742 and in 1743 canon residentiary of St Paul's Cathedral. Then from 1754 he was Bishop of Chichester for 44 years till his death in 1797, one of the longest episcopates for the see of Chichester. Ashburnham was also rector of Guestling, 1743–1797. During 1767, while Bishop of Chichester, Ashburnham was asked by the dean and chapter to reduce the number of professional adult male singers in the choir. The establishment had been for eight. Ashburnham issued statutes to reduce the number to four, their wages immediately being increased by dividing amongst them the stipend originally allotted to the whole body. The current Chichester Cathedral choir has an establishment for six lay vicars. William Ashburnham died 4 September 1797.
