From 1600’s in England to Sir Frederick Grant Banting

The Banting family genealogy begins in Oxfordshire, England in the early 1600’s.  Henry Banting married Jone Chandler and they had five sons, four of whom lived to adulthood.  William died in infancy. John Banting, born about 1654, died 1722, James Banting, born about 1655, also died in 1722, Martin Banting, was born in 1655, and Henry Banting, 1658-1709.

James Banting was Henry’s second son.  James’ wife was named Ann.  James was a blacksmith by trade.  He and Ann had a family of eight children.

Their third son, named James after his dad, was born in 1680 in the small town of Black Bourton, Oxfordshire. He carried on his father’s profession in Bampton, just two miles down the road from his birth place.  James married Mary Young, on June 4, 1707. Together they had ten children.   James died in Bampton in 1753.

James’ and Mary’s son, Charles, was born in 1717.  Unlike his father before him, Charles did not go into the business of being a “Smith.”  Instead he became a gardener. This is the profession shown on numerous baptisms of his children in Wherwell, Hampshire, where he had moved, most likely as work on the different large estates was more available to him.  Charles married Elizabeth Philips on Dec 26, 1734.  Charles and Elizabeth produced six sons.

One of Charles’ children, John, was born in 1745. His wife was named Elizabeth. For reasons unknown, this couple moved to Ballyfin, Ireland, in Queen’s county (which is now County Laois) not far from Dublin.  They had four daughters and one son. As was customary in those days, their son, Charles, was named after John’s father.

Charles married Susannah Thompson.  Their oldest son, John, was born in 1808 and married Hester Meredith. Their son, William Thompson Banting, was the father of Sir Frederick Grant Banting (1891-1941), the first Canadian Nobel Prize winner for his discovery of the life-saving hormone, Insulin.

Undertaking Royalty

Going back to the 1707 marriage, another of James’ and Mary’s sons also was named James.  He was born in 1720.  This James, after his marriage to a girl named Elizabeth, had yet another son named James in 1749.  He was their first child.  He married Martha Hewlett, on April 24, 1773.  They were still in Bampton, Oxfordshire.

This couple’s oldest son was Thomas Banting. Thomas joined a France firm. They were fine furniture makers and the Royal Undertakers of the time. Thomas eventually owned the entire business when Mr. France died. The firm was among the most eminent companies of funeral directors in Britain. As funeral directors to the Royal Household itself, the Banting family went on to conduct the funerals of King George III, King George IV, the Duke of Wellington, Prince Albert, Prince Leopold, Queen Victoria, and King Edward VII.

Thomas married Ann East, on Oct 13, 1793 in St. George’s Church, Hanover Square, Mayfair, London (referred to two centuries later in the My Fair Lady lyrics “Get Me To The Church On Time”).  Thomas and Ann had two children: William 1797-1878 and Thomas 1799-1874.

Father of the Low Carb. Diet

William Banting followed his father in the upholstery, cabinet making and undertaker business.  William was obese. For twenty years he had tried hard exercising, starvation diets and had been in and out of hospital. Nothing worked. He couldn’t bend to do up shoe laces and had to descend stairs backwards. Finally, he consulted Dr. William Harvey, who told William that if he limited his consumption of carbohydrates, he could lose weight. William Banting was so pleased with the results that, at his own expense, he published the diet in a booklet called Letter on Corpulence in 1863, and distributed it widely. He was the first person to try the Low Carb Diet. Banting’s book was so popular that it remained in print until 2007 and still is available on line. A century and a half since its publication, low carb – high fat dieting is called “banting” in many countries. In Sweden “banta” is still the main verb for “being on a diet”. In South Africa, Professor Tim Noakes book The Real Meal Revolution has popularized “banting” and restaurants offer “banting menus.”

William Banting of diet fame and Sir Fredrick Grant Banting, co-discoverer of insulin, are 3rd cousins, twice removed. This is proven because many of Fred and William’s relatives have done DNA testing. Seasoned genealogists will know that many paid genealogical data bases are incorrect.  Somehow many of these records show that the Banting’s were of Dutch ancestry. These false records show the Banting’s connected to the Bentinck family.

 By Dr. Peter Myles Banting and Brenda Mary Ayres – 2018