It was known that in 1700 Anne Guidott married Robert Jennens and they had a son William, of Acton Place.  It was not clear which Robert Jennens was the one who married Anne Guidott and thus was the father of William Jennens. 

William had no close relatives living,  and many distant relations exceedingly anxious to prove that he belonged to their side of the family. 

The real estate eventually passed to Richard William Curzon, Earl Howe, an ancestor of the former patron of Acton Church.   Curzon claimed that both he and the miser were descended from Humphrey Jennens. 

It is alleged that in trying to prove their right to share in the vast Jennens fortune, many people resorted to forging Parish Registers, certificates and other documents.  One interesting example is the monument to the Jennens family in Acton Church. On 8th July 1805, Mr. Richard long of Ballington, Essex, sent to Baroness Howe a bill for work which he had done to the Jennens Monument. He charged for cutting and painting 165 letters on the marble table and for repainting the old inscription of 471 letters, making 636 letters in all.  But on llth April 1859 (54 years later) Mr. James Coleman of Bloomsbury copied every letter on the monument. It is stated there were only 454 characters. Who had the 182 letters removed? And why? The monument now bears 625 letters. 

The Jennens Dogs: Although he cared little for the society of other people, William Jennens is known to have been very fond of his dogs. 

In September 1952, a workman clearing ground at Acton Place with a bulldozer found a battered tombstone.  Further investigation by the then Vicar of Acton, the late Revd. Canon R.T. Lambert, revealed nearby a brick vault containing the remains of two dogs and some four inch nails, believed to be coffin nails. 

The inscription on the tombstone relates to the dog called Dutches owned by Robert Jennens, the miser's father, but the finding of two skulls in the tomb lends weight to a story which has been popular in Acton for many years :- 

It is said that William Jennens,' the miser, was in the habit of taking an old setter dog with him on his trips to London. On his last visit in 1798 he failed, for reasons unknown, to take his dog with him and left it tied at his Acton home. The day after his departure his housekeeper found the  dog had gone.  It had set out on the sixty mile trek to find its master, and the third day after its escape it arrived in London and was found utterly exhausted on the steps of William Jennens' town house in Grosvenor  Square. Inside the house, Jennens himself lay dying. It is believed that  the dog died and was brought back to Acton and buried in the tomb of Robert Jennens' dog, Dutches. 

The Jennens Family and Charles Dickens

Nowadays, any local history, it seems, must have a mention of Charles Dickens. Acton can claim a link which is far more convincing than most such connections, in that "Bleak House" was inspired by the famous Jennens case :-