HANMER, Sir Thomas, 2nd Bt. (1612-78), of Bettisfield, Flints.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1660-1690, ed. B.D. Henning, 1983
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Apr. 1640
1 Nov. 1669 - 6 Oct. 1678

Family and Education

b. 4 May 1612, 1st s. of Sir John Hanmer, 1st Bt., of Hanmer by Dorothy, da. and coh. of Sir Richard Trevor of Trevalun, Denb. educ.King’s , Camb. 1627; travelled abroad 1638-40. m. (1) by 20 Feb. 1632, Elizabeth (d. c.1644), da. of Sir Thomas Baker of Whittingham Hall, Fressingfield, Suff. and h. to her bro. Thomas, maid of honour to Queen Henrietta Maria, 1s. 1da.; (2) 22 Nov. 1646, Susan, da. of Sir William Hervey of Ickworth, Suff., 2s. suc. fa. 29 June 1624.1

Offices Held

Page of honour c.1625-7; cupbearer c.1642.2

J.p. Flints. 1632-44, July 1660-d., custos rot. 1642-4, Aug. 1660-d., commr. of array 1642-4, dep. lt. c. Aug. 1660-d., commr. for assessment Aug. 1660-d., loyal and indigent officers 1662.

Capt. of dgns. (royalist) 1642-4; gov. Chirk Castle 1643.3

Biography

Hanmer’s family traced its descent from an English knight who settled in Flintshire under Edward I. They had represented Flintshire constituencies since the reign of Mary Tudor. Hanmer, a courtier, was an active Royalist at the outset of the Civil War, but obtained leave to go abroad with his wife and children on 15 May 1644, and was fined £984 by Parliament for his delinquency at the minimum rate of one-tenth. In 1646 he provided information about the King’s negotiations with the Scots, and was later exempted from decimation for this ‘signal service’. He was more interested in horticulture than in politics, being celebrated for the introduction of the Agate Hanmer tulip, though Roger Whitley Roger Whitley included him among the Welsh Royalists in 1658, and at the Restoration he was proposed as knight of the Royal Oak, with an estate of £3,000 p.a.4

After an interval of nearly 30 years. Hanmer was returned for Flintshire at a by-election in 1669. He was a moderately active Member of the Cavalier Parliament, in which he was named to 35 committees. Together with John Birch John Birch and John Ratcliffe John Ratcliffe he was ordered on the petition of the Chester corporation to bring in a bill for improving the navigation of the Dee. A persecutor of conventicles, he was appointed to the committees for both bills in 1670. He spoke in favour of a land tax on 1 Dec., and at the end of the session he was listed among the government supporters as a ‘court cully’, who had been ‘entered in the bribe-master’s books’. He spoke briefly on the Northumberland peerage case in 1674, and was appointed to his last committee on 20 Apr. 1675. Although he received the government whip for the autumn session, he was noted as absent by Sir Richard Wiseman Sir Richard Wisemen and ‘wanting’ on the working lists. Nevertheless he was listed among the government speakers and marked ‘doubly vile’ by Shaftesbury in 1677. According to A Seasonable Argument he was in receipt of a pension of £500 p.a., and he was listed among the court party in 1678. He died on 6 Oct. before the last session of the Parliament, and was buried at Hanmer. He was posthumously included in the ‘unanimous club’ of government supporters.5

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Author: A. M. Mimardière

Notes

  • 1. J. Hanmer, Par. and Fam. of Hanmer, 63-65, 77; Copinger, Suff. Manors, iv. 36.
  • 2. Hanmer, 63; Cal. Comm. Comp. 943.
  • 3. Hanmer, 65.
  • 4. Hanmer, 14, 75-76; Thurloe, iv. 277; J. W. Stoye, English Travellers Abroad, 405.
  • 5. CJ, ix. 109; Hanmer, 121; Grey, i. 315; ii. 401, 403; Harl. 7020, f. 48; Hanmer, 112.