The Hoare Family and Cork Quakers

THE HOARE FAMILY AND CORK QUAKERS

THE HOARE FAMILY AND CORK QUAKERS

by

Richard J Hoare of Sheffield

Created 18 July 1998; last updated Jan 2013

In this piece of family research, I present a little new information about the early Hoare family in Cork, especially from Quaker sources. I started from the following: my six-greats-grandfather Edward Hoare, from Greens Norton in Northamptonshire, went to Ireland with Cromwell’s army in 1649, and in 1666-7 with his brother Abraham received a grant of land in county Cork, and was buried a Quaker there in 1690. His eldest son Edward became a rich merchant, whose own son lost his fortune in an uninsured shipping loss, but whose lawyer grandson went on receive a baronetcy (Hoare of Annabella) which still survives. His third son Joseph became a Quaker, and married four Quaker wives. My branch of the family are descended from the third of these, Margaret Satterthwaite, a Quaker minister from Hawkshead in the Lake District, and her son Samuel Hoare who settled in London, and was also the ancestor of Samuel Hoare, Viscount Templewood, foreign secretary before the Second War. I wanted to find out how and when the first Edward became a Quaker, and all I could about his Quaker descendents.

Edward Hoare senior was not an early convert to Quakerism, as many of Cromwell’s army were. He remained an army officer until 1660, and was apparently a land profiteer at the expense of his men. One of his sons, and one grandson became Quakers, and their descendants married into several other Irish Quaker families in Cork: the Rogers, Beales, Pikes, Abells, Albeys, Viponds, and Westcombs. They were none of them prominent Quakers except for Margaret Satterthwaite. The family name disappeared among Cork Quakers in 1779 with Joseph Hoare the (?) doctor. It continued of course with the Anglican branches including the Hoares of Annabella, and the Quaker line was transmitted to England in the person of Margaret’s son Samuel.

The following is an account of what I have found out from Quaker archives, wills, and secondary sources about Edward the soldier, his children, and the Quaker branches of the family in Cork. I am afraid most of the male characters are called Joseph or Edward, which doesn’t make for easy reading. You will just have to concentrate and do your best, with (or without) the help of this chart:

______

||

Lt Abraham HoareMajor Edward ==|== Mary

d.1669 or 1670Hoare d.1690 | Woodcock d.1690

______|______

||| | ||

Edward 1676 SarahElizabethEnoch Hesther SamuelJosephHannah 1704 William

Hoare ==|== Burnell HoareHoare Hoare ==|== TerryHoare Hoare ==== Bull

d.1765 | ______|______|______married

merchant || || | |four times

Edward Hoare and 6 sibsEdwardSarah 1720 Joseph Hoare Richard Mary Sarah d.1729

Hoares of Annabella Hoare Abel ==|== d.1779 Terry Terry Terry|

|(doctor?)|

______||

||

|m.(1) 1692 Rachel Rogers, m (2) 1708 Deborah Weilly, m(4) 1720 Mary Beale, m (3) 1713 Margaret Satterthwaite

|______|______| ______|

||| | | | |

|Edward1692-4Joseph Jane 1723 CalebEdwardSamuel 1744 Grizell

|Francisd.1695Hoare Hoare ==|== BealeHoareHoare ==|== Gurnell

|Edward1697-81696-1740______1699-1745___|_____1714-181716 |

|Maryd.1698|| | |- 1796 |

|Benjamin d.1700RachelJosephMaryCaleb m. Margaretmoved to London,

|BealeBealeBealeBeale | Pim of Dublinancestor of Templewood,

|d.17251725-81728-47 b.1730 4 sons, 4 daughtersand our branch of family

|

|______

|||||||| |

AbrahamRachelElizabethJosephSarah 1753 JamesJane (1) 1755 JosephRichardJosephEnoch

HoareHoare HoareHoareHoare ==== VipondHoare ==== AlbeyHoareHoareHoare

1721-27b.17231725-441726-30 1728-57 b.1730 (2) 1757 George 1731-41732-5 1733-40

==== Westcomb

Chart: Family tree including all the Hoares who were Quakers in Cork (in italics)

Major Edward Hoare

I found Edward Hoare’s name turning up in records [a] of one of Cromwell’s regiments of foot, which was raised in 1644 by a Colonel John Pickering of Northamptonshire, where presumably the two brothers, Edward and Abraham from Greens Norton, joined up. The regiment fought with the Earl of Manchester at Marston Moor, and was then incorporated in Cromwell’s New Model Army. It was the centre of five front-line regiments at Naseby, initially beaten back and disordered by the Royalists, until the day was saved by reserves. Under Cromwell they were at the taking of Devizes, Laycock House, Winchester and Basing. Pickering’s second in command, Lt-Colonel Hewson, led them at the storming of Bridgewater, and they were in Montagu’s brigade taking Lawford’s gate at Bristol, capturing 22 cannon and many prisoners with little loss. At the blockade of Exeter in November 1644, Pickering died of fever, and Hewson took over the command.

In 1647, Parliament and army were in disagreement about disbanding certain regiments and sending others to Ireland. Hewson was a leader of army discontent with Parliament policy, and his officers and men were united in refusing either transfer to Ireland or disbandment. Among more mundane grievances formally expressed by the regiment were two political points - that English freemen were subject to arbitrary imprisonment, and that the laws of the land were in a foreign tongue. On a false rumour of the arrival of an order to disband, the regiment briefly occupied a church with their arms, and although a date of June 3rd was fixed for disbandment, the regiment were at a general army rendezvous at Newmarket immediately after, and in the brigade in Southwark in August which forced the passage of London Bridge. During the Leveller disorders in the Army in October, Hewson’s regiment sent a loyal address to Fairfax, who quartered them in London in November. This was to hasten the payment of the citizens’ assessment for army pay, which had been delayed for political reasons. In 1648 the regiment was campaigning in Kent, and was praised by Fairfax for their part in the storming of Maidstone. In the Autumn they petitioned Fairfax against treating with King Charles, and helped occupy London. Hewson was one of Charles’ judges.

After Charles’ execution, Cromwell chose by lot four regiments of foot (including Hewson’s) and four of horse to go to Ireland and quell the rebellion there, and subsequently more were chosen or recruited. Hewson’s officers included Lt-Colonel Daniel Axtell, Major John Carter, and a lieutenant Edward Hoare. They landed at Dublin, and in the storming of Drogheda, Hewson’s was among the regiments which suffered heavily. After the campaign Hewson, who was unwell, was made governor of Dublin for the winter. In February 1650 he marched out, and took part in the siege of Kilkenny on his way south to join Cromwell. Thereafter, we lose track of the regiment for a few years, but during those years, Edward married [b]. His wife was Mary Woodcock, daughter of a Captain John Woodcock, who with his brother Thomas had come over with Robert Tothill’s regiment of foot, one of those raised in 1648/9 to supplement the Irish expedition. The regiment mutinied at one point for lack of money, clothes and provisions. It never achieved distinction, and Tothill himself was cashiered by Ireton in 1651 for killing prisoners who had been offered quarter. The regiment was disbanded along with others in August 1653. During most of the Commonwealth period, officers and men received half their pay in cash, and the rest in “debentures” which could be exchanged for the land of dispossessed royalists and rebels. Tothill’s regiment was evidently allocated land in Kilkenny, as the Woodcock family were living at Kilbrogan (or Kilcragan or Kilrogan?) in that county at least from 1656 when John died, to 1680 when his son was living there.

However in January 1655 there was fear of another Royalist uprising in England, and Cromwell recalled twenty-six companies of foot from Ireland, including four of Hewson’s. Hewson was then commissioned to supplement his four troops in England up to full regimental strength. Edward Hoare was already a captain-lieutenant in Ireland (a senior lieutenant in charge of the colonel’s personal company within the regiment), so if he was not already a captain on his return, the creation of new companies in England would soon have provided him with his promotion. He must have brought his new bride back to England soon after marrying her. By 1659 he had four children (mentioned in his mother-in-law’s will): Edward, Elizabeth, Enoch and Hesther, and subsequently another two, Hannah and Joseph. At this point Hewson’s officers included Lt-Colonel Duckenfield, Edward Hoare (now a Major), and several other veterans from the Irish campaign.

1659 was also the year when discord between Parliament and Army, and between officers and men, led to the ascendency of General Monk which paved the way for Charles II’s return. In August, Hewson’s regiment helped defeat the Royalists at Nantwich. Subsequently in the political struggle they were instrumental in holding up the proceedings of Parliament by force, until with the rest of the English Army they were forced to submit to the Speaker on 24th December at Lincoln Inn Fields. Hewson lost his command, though Edward kept his commission until March 1660. Edward and his brother Lieutenant Abraham Hoare were paid off for their army service by a grant of 3468 acres at Togher Castle, 30 miles west of Cork, which they claimed in 1666 and 1667.

Part of the Restoration deal was that Charles would honour all pay arrears to the Army on disbanding, but since he replaced most of the officers with his own supporters before disbanding their regiments, the Republican officers would not have benefitted. In addition those officers who had purchased confiscated lands in England would have lost them to their previous owners. In Ireland however, land grants made to soldiers from rebel estates in the 1653 Irish Act of Settlement were largely confirmed by Charles II - after all, the original owners had initially rebelled against Charles’ father in 1641. The lands had been allocated to regiments by lot, and within areas to individual companies by lot, so that comrades-in-arms were supposed to become neighbours. As land in Cork was allocated at 16/- per acre [a], the Hoares’ debentures must have been worth £2774. Since a captain of foot (if Edward had reached that rank) was paid 8/- a day, and a lieutenant 4/-, the most the two brothers could have earned in 53/4 years was £1260, and only half of that in debentures. So Edward and Abraham were among those who profited at the expense of their men in the debenture trade. A soldier in 1660 wrote in a pamphlet “Did not most of those officers (by God’s mercy now cashiered the army) purchase your debentures (the price of blood) from two shillings to a noble in the pound to enrich themselves and perpetuate your slavery? And through their cruelty many of our fellow soldiers, who were wounded in battle and made unserviceable, with wives and children starved in the streets for want of bread, while they lorded over you tyrant like.”

When did Edward become a Quaker? (And as a debenture speculator, he doesn’t seem the most likely convert.) He must have been in Cork in 1676 when his son married, and was probably there at the time of the land grants of 1666 & 1667. His father-in-law (or perhaps brother-in-law) was supposed to have been a Quaker [b], so maybe his wife earlier or later turned him in that direction. I looked for him in Quaker sources, and drew a blank. Quakerism took root in Cork in 1655 [c] with the arrival of Quaker missionaries Edmund Burroughs and Francis Howgil. They were shortly sent packing back to England by Henry Cromwell, but not before helping establish a strong following among soldiers and ex-soldiers. Quakers were then much persecuted, thrown out of the army, beaten, imprisoned or fined for plain speaking (“thee” and “thou” to all), refusing to doff hats, to take oaths, or pay tithes, and their sufferings were meticulously recorded - but there was no mention of an Edward Hoare in Ireland. He was not one of 26 Quakers of Munster province meeting who testified against the rival sect of Muggletonians in 1673. The Quaker men in Cork held local meetings every three weeks, and district meetings every six weeks, but again his name does not occur among the dozen or so local worthies who are regularly mentioned in the minutes up to 1690. The first sign of the family in the records is the burial of Edward in the city Quaker graveyard in September 1690, and his wife Mary a few weeks later, and subsequently their son Joseph’s intention to marry a Quaker woman in 1692.

Edward was either a late convert to Quakerism, or else as a Quaker he had very much kept his head down. At all events the Cork Quakers recorded that on 3rd September 1690 “Edard Hoar - the father of Joseph Hoar forenamed, Dyed in Cork an easy death without an Hour’s sickness only a little ailed after his breakfast - laid him down on the Bed & in a fainting fit expired suddenly in the house of his son Edward.” On the 28th the city (which had been in Catholic hands for some time) surrendered to the English who had been besieging it for a week. Mary his wife was buried on 27th October. She probably died from an epidemic in the city following the siege (see description of the siege by Joseph Pike, quoted below).

Edward and Mary had six children. Their eldest son Edward was a merchant, as was their youngest son Joseph who became a Quaker. Their second son Enoch remains shadowy: he had two sons, Edward and Joseph. There were three daughters, Elizabeth, Hesther and Hannah. Hesther married Samuel Terry, and had three children, Richard, Mary and Sarah. Hannah married William Bull by licence in 1704. I shall return to the sons Edward and Joseph, and the grandson Joseph (son of Enoch) in turn.

Edward Hoare the son

Edward and Mary’s eldest son, also Edward, became a substantial figure in Cork. He was a rich wine merchant and banker, and invested in property in Cork, Limerick and Kerry. In 1676 he had married Sarah, the daughter of Col. Richard Burnell at St Finbar’s Cathedral. (Burnell had been a Captain of foot in Gifford’s and later Reeves regiments, and had been a plotter in the revolt of the Munster garrisons to Cromwell in 1649.) Edward was sheriff of Cork in 1684 and mayor in 1686 and alderman, and was said to have owned the first coach and four in the city. (When he died in 1709, he left to his wife “5 of my best horses & the coatch & shease”).

The English “Glorious Revolution” in 1688 marked the start of civil war in Ireland, between the supporters of James II and those of William and Mary. According to two sources [b,e], in 1689 young Edward, whose property and estates (worth £500 a year) had been confiscated by James II’s Parliament, fled with his wife and three children to London for safety, staying with relatives at Edmonton. After the war he returned via Waterford, from where he wrote to Robert Southwell, a powerful local friend and Minister for Ireland, to send him safe conduct across the country to Cork. Several letters from Waterford among the Southwell papers in the British Museum are referred to [e]: the only one I have been able to find [g], attributed to “Mr Hoare”, suggests he had a house in Dublin, in which city his children were being looked after, and to which he and his father wished to return, along with other merchants and their goods, but this needs further study.

Cork was not captured by the English until late September 1690. A Cork Quaker merchant, Joseph Pike, wrote [e]: “In seventh month [September] 1690, Cork was besieged by the English. The Lord Churchill .... commanded the siege, McGillicuddy being then the Irish Governor of the city. He was a rude boisterous man, and gave out that he intended to burn the suburbs; upon which the inhabitants, English and Irish, treated with him to save them, and agreed to pay him £500 in silver .... ; yet I could not trust his word, and removed the best of my goods, and thereby saved them ... .Notwithstanding which, he afterwards, without giving the least notice, burned both the north and south suburbs, whereby not only the houses but much goods were destroyed. The town was taken in a few days; and about 4000, with the Governor, taken prisoners, some of whom were put in our meeting-house, [and other places of worship]. .... and the weather being wet, the English soldiers, as well as the Irish prisoners, grew very sickly, and great numbers died .... The citizens were also infected .... and the city became like a hospital for a long time. ....

“The Protestants were shut up in prisons and houses with guards over them [he now appears to be describing the state of affairs before the city was captured], but Friends were at liberty, the Irish believing there was no danger from us, so that if the city had been taken by storm, as it was on the point of being, humanly speaking, we should have been slain with the Irish.”

The Quaker description quoted above of Edward Hoare dying in his son’s house in Cork before the end of the siege is puzzling. The Southwell letter suggests that father and son were travelling as merchants: they would have had to return quickly from Waterford through Protestant held country into a Catholic-held city. If Edward Hoare senior was a Quaker, Pike’s reference to Quakers being at liberty in the city might help to explain how they re-entered the city. On the other hand, if the letter was misattributed, his father might have remained in Cork and simply have been using the house during his son’s absence when he died.