HANNAM (HAMMOND), John (by 1519-59), of Wimborne Minster, Dorset.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509-1558, ed. S.T. Bindoff, 1982
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

1547
Nov. 1554

Family and Education

b. by 1519, 2nd s. of Richard Hannam of Horsington, Som. by Ricarda, da. of John Tiptry of Som. educ. ?M. Temple. m. by 1541, Alice, prob. da. of John Orenge of London, Exeter and Plymouth, Devon and Wimborne Minster, 2s. inc. Thomas 1da.3

Offices Held

J.p. Dorset 1547, 1558/59; commr. chantries, Dorset, Som. 1548, relief, Dorset 1550.4

Biography

John Hannam’s ancestors had been established for several generations on the Dorset border of Somerset. His father, described in the pardon roll of 1509 as a Franklin of Horsington and Lydlinch, Dorset, died in 1549 holding a third of the manor of Gotehill and of land in Milborne Port and elsewhere in Somerset, withP 210 acres in Horsington. This property descended to the elder son William: the patrimony of the younger son is not known.5

Hannam may have been educated at the Middle Temple, the inn attended by John Orenge and his own younger son Thomas as well as by several of his friends, notably James Dyer. He is not known to have practised, but he may be identifiable with the ‘Mr. Hannam, our attorney in the court of augmentations’, retained during 1541-2 by the corporation of Plymouth where John Orenge once had his home: some legal knowledge would have been an advantage in several of the duties that he was called upon to perform including his appointment in 1559 to a commission to settle a dispute between Melcombe Regis and Weymouth. By whatever means, Hannam evidently prospered: in 1545 he was assessed for the subsidy at Wimborne on lands, fees and annuities worth £20 and two years later he was assessed on goods worth £40. He regularly made small purchases of property, a little in Somerset but mostly in Dorset, from 1544 until his death 15 years later.6

In 1540 Hannam was commissioned by the Earl of Hertford to sell timber felled in Somerset, and when Hertford became Duke of Somerset and Protector was employed on several occasions between 1548 and 1552 by the duke’s comptroller, Richard Fulmerston, as the bearer of money to his cofferer. It was doubtless to Somerset as lord of Poole that Hannam owed the opportunity in 1547 to sit in the Commons as senior Member for the borough. In the December following his election he acquired an interest in the town when he leased its church and rectory for £6 13s.4d. He was not re-elected for Poole to Edward VI’s second Parliament and as an adherent of the fallen duke (although not to be confused with the ‘Hamounde’, one Lawrence Hammond, arrested in 1551) he is unlikely to have found a seat elsewhere. In May 1553 he received £1 6s.8d. from the corporation of Poole for his outstanding parliamentary wages ‘in anno 48’. In the autumn of 1554 Hannam probably owed his return for Melcombe Regis to another noble patron, William Herbert I, 1st Earl of Pembroke, whom he served as under steward in one of his Dorset manors. Hannam and his fellow-Member Thomas Phelips left Mary’s third Parliament without a licence before its dissolution. During 1555 Hannam was informed against in the King’s bench for this dereliction, but no further process was taken against him.7

By his will of 20 Jan. 1559 Hannam left his younger son the manor of Winterborne Marwood alias Shelston, Dorset, plate, £30 and 120 sheep. To his elder son Richard, the heir to all his other property, he bequeathed £20, household goods and all his swans. He named his wife and son executors and as overseers he chose Sir James Dyer, his brother William Hannam and his son-in-law John Skerne. He died on the following 9 Sept.8

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Authors: Helen Miller / M. K. Dale

Notes

  • 1. Hatfield 207; Poole rec. bk. 1, p. 87.
  • 2. Huntington Lib. Hastings mss Parl. pprs.
  • 3. Date of birth estimated from first reference. Vis. Dorset (Harl. Soc. xx), 50; J. Sydenham, Poole, 275, 294; PCC 42 Chaynay.
  • 4. CPR, 1547-8, p. 83; 1548-9, p. 136; 1553, p. 352.
  • 5. Sydenham, 275, 294; Hutchins, Dorset, iii. 231; PCC 41 Holgrave; LP Hen. VIII, i; C142/89/145.
  • 6. Plymouth receiver’s acct. bk. 1541-2; St. Ch.3/M30/14; E179/104/172, 174; LP Hen. VIII, xix, xxi; CPR, 1549-51, p. 168; 1557-8, p. 212.
  • 7. LP Hen. VIII, xx; HMC Bath, iv. 77; Egerton 2815; Hutchins, i. 51; APC, iii. 391, 417; W. K. Jordan, Edw. VI, ii. 83, 85, 94; Poole rec. bk. 1, p. 87; CPR, 1553, p. 179; Procs. Dorset Nat. Hist. and Arch. Soc. lxix. 107; KB27/1176 rex roll 16.
  • 8. PCC 42 Chaynay; C142/122/25; Wards 9/139, ff. 201v-202v.