Michelle Dockery - Early Life

Early Life

Dockery was born and brought up in Romford, East London. She is the youngest of three daughters of Michael Dockery, a native of Athlone, Ireland, who worked his way up from driving a van to becoming a surveyor, and his wife, Lorraine (Witton), from Stepney, East London. Dockery's maternal great-grandmother, Maud Malyon, was born in 1910 in Newham, East London, and was a domestic servant. She was 17 when she married Dockery's great-grandfather, grocer’s assistant William Henry Oakman, 18, at West Ham Register Office.

Dockery was educated first at the Chadwell Heath Foundation School (now the Chadwell Heath Academy) in Chadwell Heath, East London. She was then trained at the Finch Stage School. After her A Levels she enrolled at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, graduating in 2004.