Real secrets of Downton's girls: On screen they play the Earl's daughters, each with something to hide, but what are the dramas that lie in their own family histories?

By Barbara Davies for the Daily Mail

Updated: 18:02 EST, 30 September 2011

As the aristocratic daughters of historical drama Downton Abbey, they delight millions. But how do the real backgrounds of the actresses who play Lady Mary, Lady Edith and Lady Sybil compare to the fiction?

With the help of genealogist Robert Barrett, Barbara Davies delved into the archives to discover the family histories of Michelle Dockery, Laura Carmichael and Jessica Brown-Findlay.

So, Ladies of Downton, do you belong upstairs or downstairs?

Upstairs or downstairs? The sisters of Downton Abbey - Lady Edith, Lady Mary and Lady Sybil. We look at how the backgrounds of the actresses who play them compare to fiction

Lady Edith Played by Laura Carmichael

Laura Carmichael's father is a software consultant and her mother a radiographer

She may play the part of the least popular of the Earl of Grantham’s daughters, but in real life Laura Carmichael boasts an astonishing family heritage, of which Downton’s Lady Edith would no doubt be proud.

The 25-year-old actress’s ancestors lived in their very own Yorkshire castle which, just like Downton in the series, was opened up as a hospital for the war wounded — though during World War II rather than the first.

Cave Castle in South Cave, near Hull, was built in the Gothic style in 1787, although the history dates back to 1069 when William II presented the land to the Jordayne de Cave family.

In 1875, fire swept through it, destroying a valuable collection of paintings, and the building was restored by Charles Barnard, a magistrate. His only surviving daughter, Ursula, lived there until 1925 when it was purchased by Laura’s great-grandfather on her father’s side, wealthy company director James Wright Carmichael.

After signing up as a temporary Lieutenant in the Yorkshire Light Infantry, James Carmichael opened the doors of his Castle as an Army officers’ headquarters and mess during World War II. Makeshift barracks were erected in the 150-acre grounds to house prisoners of war brought over from Europe.

Subsequently, Carmichael restored the Jacobean building and converted it into a country club which, by the Sixties, was well-established with the higher echelons of Yorkshire society. It was later sold by the family and is now a country house hotel.

As if that wasn’t impressive enough, another of Laura’s Leeds-born great-grandfathers on her father’s side was Captain Norman Blackburn, a World War I flying ace and aviation pioneer.

He was one of three famous brothers whose firm, Blackburn Aircraft, established in 1914, made some of the first British aircraft and went on to become British Aerospace.

A devoted pilot, Norman saw action in the newly-formed Royal Naval Air Service, qualifying in 1915 as a Flight Sub-Lieutenant and serving at the front in a Kangaroo bomber. At the end of the war, he joined the newly formed RAF as an Acting Major, commanding 132 Squadron before returning to Leeds to join his brothers, Robert and Charles, building and flying aeroplanes.

He also managed the RAF Reserve training school at Brough in Yorkshire from 1924 to 1940, where more than 10,000 pilots were trained. Among the celebrities who were taught to fly there was aviatrix

The Hon Mrs Victor Bruce, who in 1930, after only eight weeks of lessons from Captain Blackburn, became the first woman to fly solo around the world (crossing the oceans by ship). She did so in a Blackburn Bluebird aircraft.

On February 20, 1931, at the end of the final leg of Mrs Bruce’s journey, Capt Blackburn was reported to have greeted her at Croydon Airport wearing a magnificent camel hair coat.

Asked why he was wearing such a flamboyant outfit, he was quoted by an aviation magazine as joking: ‘When wearing this coat, I can go without a drink for a week.’

These two remarkable sides of Laura’s family came together in 1949 when James Carmichael’s son Thomas, a chartered accountant, married Captain Blackburn’s daughter Joan, a journalist.

One of their sons is Laura’s father, Dr Andrew Carmichael, a software consultant.

He is married to Sarah, a radiographer, and the family live in Southampton, where Laura grew up with her two sisters, Amy, 27, who studied history of art at Bristol University, and Olivia, 24, a charity worker.

In the current series of Downton Abbey, Lady Edith has been doing her bit for the war effort by helping out at a local farm. Laura’s research included talking to her grandmother, a veteran of the Land Army in World War II.

Lady Mary Played by Michelle Dockery

Michelle Dockery is the youngest daughter born to an Irish immigrant former lorry driver and his wife from Stepney, East London

A million miles from the refined life of her haughty alter ego Lady Mary, 29-year-old Michelle was born and raised in Romford, Essex.

She comes from a long line of working-class East Enders, which would no doubt have had Lady Mary reaching for her smelling salts.

Michelle is the youngest of three daughters born to Irish immigrant former lorry driver Michael, 67, from County Athlone, and his 58-year-old wife Lorraine, from Stepney, East London, who used to be a shorthand typist and now delivers meals on wheels.

Her sister Joanne, 33, is also an actress and Louise, 35, teaches at a language school in Barcelona.

‘Lady Mary would never have talked to me — I’d have been in service,’ Michelle said this week.

‘In fact, I asked my nan recently if any of our family had been in service and she reckons they were.’

Michelle’s grandmother was right. Michelle’s great-grandmother Maud Malyon, who was born in 1910 in Newham, East London, was indeed a domestic servant and was just 17 when she married grocer’s assistant William Henry Oakman, 18, at West Ham register office. Michelle’s grandmother, Elizabeth, was born the following year.

William’s father George Oakman was a general dealer, and several of Michelle’s family have worked in trade. One of Michelle’s grandfathers, Arthur Witton, was a leather merchant.

Her great-great-great-grandmother Caroline Page, born in 1850 in Shoreditch, East London, married a greengrocer called John Purkis.

Her great-grandfather Arthur Malyon was a Walthamstow horse dealer.

Michelle has often talked proudly of her upwardly-mobile family.

‘My mum and dad are real fighters and I see it in myself and my sisters,’ she said.

After working as a driver, in his 50s, her father graduated in occupational hygiene and qualified as an environmental analyst, becoming the first person to survey the British bases in Antarctica.

Michelle has admitted that her Essex girl roots once lost her a childhood role. While auditioning for The Sound of Music, she made the mistake of claiming: ‘I’ve done lots of shows round Essex but I ain’t done nuffink up the West End.’

But she admits to an abiding affection for hooped earrings, something she likes to refer to as ‘my little bit of Essex bling’.

As the aristocratic daughters in Downton Abbey, Lady Edith, Lady Sybil and Lady Mary delight millions

Lady Sybil Played by Jessica Brown-Findlay

Jessica Brown-Findlay's father is a former investment banker and her mother used to be a nurse but is now a classroom assistant

For her role as Lady Sybil, the youngest and feistiest of Downton’s daughters, actress Jessica Brown-Findlay recently swapped her beaded evening gowns for an auxiliary nurse’s uniform to tend to wounded soldiers being brought back to Britain from the Great War.

In real life, the 22-year-old actress from Cookham, Berkshire, comes from a family which has participated in some of the most tumultuous conflicts of the past century.

Her highly decorated paternal great-grandfather was Scotsman Lieutenant Colonel George William Cumming, a member of the British Expeditionary Force in Europe from 1939-40.

He was sent over to the Franco-Belgian border in September 1939 at the start of World War II in readiness to fight the Germans. 

Battle finally commenced in May 1940 when he was among troops driven back towards the coast of Northern France, where thousands were subsequently evacuated from the Dunkirk region.

He later served with the Royal Corps of Signals and was awarded the OBE in 1940 and the United States Medal of Freedom in 1948, an award introduced by President Harry S. Truman to honour those who had aided the U.S. war effort.

According to Jessica, one of her grandmothers also did her bit for the war effort.

‘I’ve read my grandmother’s memoirs and she served as a nurse during World War II,’ she said recently.

‘What they had to do was incredible. I know it was a different war, but I wanted to learn as much as I could. I didn’t want to do the nurses a disservice.’

While 19th-century records suggest that Jessica’s family origins began below stairs, the Brown-Findlay family tree of the past 150 years suggests a long ascent from the lower middle-classes.

Her great-great-grandfather Alexander Findlay was born in Glasgow in 1840 and worked as a bank messenger.

Her great-grandfather, William Brown Findlay, was born in Glasgow in 1874 and did slightly better than his father by becoming a bank clerk and, later, a bank accountant. He spent some of his working life in Dusseldorf, Germany, and incorporated his middle name, Brown, into his surname, perhaps to give himself more gravitas.

His siblings were Alexander, a book-keeper, John, a fire insurance inspector, Mary, a housekeeper, and Ann, who worked as a dressmaker.

William’s son, Peter Brown-Findlay, followed in his father’s footsteps and went into the world of finance, living for a while with his wife Isobel in Nairobi and also working for the Industrial and Commercial Finance Corporation in London.

Peter and Isobel’s son is Jessica’s father, Christopher, 55, a former investment banker.

Her mother Beverley used to be a nurse but is now a classroom assistant. Jessica, who trained as a ballerina but was forced to give up dancing after a botched ankle operation, grew up with her younger sister Katherine, 21, who is a nanny.

Comments (12)

Share what you think

• Newest
• Oldest
• Best rated
• Worst rated

 View all

The comments below have not been moderated.

 View all

The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline.

We are no longer accepting comments on this article.

Who is this week's top commenter? Find out now