He was the son of Martin Dunsford (1711–1763) who manufactured serge in Tiverton, Devon, having a large workshop created from a row of houses, and a workforce of over 50. His mother was Anne Stone. Educated at Blundell"s School, he went into his father"s business at age 13.
His work is noted as an attempt to write of the town as a whole community. He lived at Villa Franca, Park Road, now a listed building. Dunsford is described in Lewis Namier"s The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III as the leader of a movement in Tiverton for extending the local franchise, at the end of the 18th century.
Holding local political office as a Churchwarden, he opposed the Ryder family who controlled the parliamentary elections in the town.
In 1781 he set up a petition to Parliament, presented through James Townsend, for greater electoral rights. The Town Clerk Beavis Wood monitored those activities and his supporters were branded as Jacobins in the 1790s.
Dunsford wrote his major work, published 1790 by subscription, during the 1780s, a period when he acted as a churchwarden in Tiverton. His motivations were described in an unpublished autobiography, where he revealed his intention to promote civil liberties and religious freedom.
lieutenant contains also information about early combinations in Devon.
The sources Dunsford used, besides his own research, included earlier work and collation by the antiquarians John Blundell, William Hewett and Thomas Westcott. A further edition appeared in 1836, edited by George Boyce.
