Clement-Jones family 12/22 - Person Sheet
Clement-Jones family 12/22 - Person Sheet
NameSir Thomas HANMER 2nd Bt , 11289
Birth1612
Death1678
FatherSir John HANMER 1st Bart , 11288 (1590-1624)
MotherDorothy TREVOR , 11285
Spouses
FatherSir Thomas BAKER , 16354
ChildrenJohn , 16339 (-1701)
2Susan HERVEY, 16342
FatherSir William HERVEY , 16343
Marriage1646
ChildrenWilliam , 16344 (ca1648-)
Notes for Sir Thomas HANMER 2nd Bt
Sir Thomas Hanmer, 2nd Baronet (1612–1678) was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons in 1640 and from 1669 to 1678. He was a Royalist during the English Civil War and raised troops for Charles I. In his personal life he was a keen horticulturist. He is not to be confused with Sir Thomas Hanmer, 2nd Baronet (1747–1828) of the second creation.

Life

Hanmer was born in 1612, the eldest son of Sir John Hanmer, 1st Baronet. His father was a Member of Parliament for Flintshire and tended towards the Puritan side of Parliament. Hanmer was a page to Charles I from 1625 to 1627, and became the king's cupbearer. He was interested in horticulture and corresponded with other gardeners.

With the death of his father, Hanmer inherited the Hanmer Baronetage, becoming the 2nd Baronet of Hanmer. In April 1640, Hanmer was elected Member of Parliament for Flint Boroughs in the Short Parliament. Despite his uncle, Roger Hanmer, supporting Parliament during the Civil War, Thomas was a Royalist and was the cup-bearer of Charles I of England; and Charles proposed to his nephew, Prince Rupert that Hanmer be made vice-president of the Council of Wales.

In 1669 Hanmer gained his second Parliamentary seat when he was elected as member for Flintshire, which he held until his death in 1678.


Hanmer was married twice: his first marriage was to Elizabeth Baker, who eloped with the eccentric pamphleteer the Hon. Thomas Hervey, a son of John Hervey, 1st Earl of Bristol; there were two surviving children of this marriage: a son John, who succeeded him as 3rd Baronet: and a daughter, Trevor (1636-1670), married Sir John Warner (1640-1705) of Parham, Sussex, who both converted to Catholicism; she became a Carthusian nun.

Thomas Hamner married secondly Susan Hervey, daughter of Sir William Hervey, MP for Bury St. Edmunds. Of this marriage his son, William (born circa 1648 in Angers, Anjou, France), aged 15 went to Pembroke College, Oxford; he married Peregrina, daughter and co-heiress of Sir Sir Henry North, 1st Baronet, of Mildenhall, Essex.[8][9] Their children were Susanna (16 August 1676 – 23 September 1744), who married Sir Henry Bunbury of Rake Hall, Little Stanney, Cheshire;[10] and Thomas, later 4th Baronet.[11] John, the 3rd baronet died without issue in 1701; his younger brother William having already predeceased their father (the 2nd Baronet), William's son Thomas succeeded to the baronetcy.[12]

A daughter, Thomasin, married Robert Booth and died without issue on 14 May 1712.

From ODNB

Hanmer, Sir Thomas, second baronet (1612–1678), gardener and writer, was born on 4 May 1612, the son of Sir John Hanmer, first baronet (d. 1624), of Hanmer, Flintshire, and his wife, Dorothy, daughter of Sir Richard Trevor of Trefalun, Denbighshire. Following the premature death of his father in 1624, Hanmer inherited the baronetcy the former had gained in 1620. He was a page at the court of Charles I from 1625 until 1627, when in the Easter term he matriculated from King's College, Cambridge.
At some point between 1630 and 20 February 1632 Sir Thomas married Elizabeth (d. 1645), daughter of Sir Thomas Baker of Whittingham, Suffolk, a lady-in-waiting to the queen. Their children included John (d. 1701), Thomas, and a daughter, Trevor. From 1638 to 1640, following the fashion, Sir Thomas embarked on a tour of the continent, but was home in time to be returned as MP for Flint in April 1640.
In or before 1642 Sir Thomas was serving as a cup-bearer to the king, and on the outbreak of civil war he was appointed a commissioner of array for his county, with responsibility for raising a band of archers and a dragoon regiment. Early in 1644 Prince Rupert appointed him, with Dudley Wyatt, his representative in north Wales; meeting with the county commissioners, they agreed new local taxes. His property was raided more than once by parliamentarian soldiers, and on 15 May 1644 he obtained leave to go to France with his family. He was fined for delinquency by parliament at the minimum rate.
In July 1645 Lady Hanmer died in Paris, and it seems to have been from there in 1646 that Sir Thomas supplied information to parliament about the king's negotiations with the French and Scots. Leaving his daughter in the care of a Huguenot group and dispatching his son Thomas to a Lisbon seminary, he secretly visited Hengrave Hall, Suffolk, and before February 1646 married Susan Hervey, daughter of Sir William Hervey of Ilkworth. Returning to France, the couple lived first at Nantes and then at Angers. During this period Sir Thomas compiled 'A description of France in 1648', which remained unpublished. His sons William and Thomas (d. 1683) were born there about 1648 and 1650 respectively.
After payment of a £1500 fine, Sir Thomas was discharged from sequestration in 1650 in the light of his 'signal service to the commonwealth' (as he was subsequently also from the 1655 decimation tax) and allowed to return to England. Initially he lived with his mother in her dower house at Halghton, before moving back to his ancestral home at Bettisfield. From then onwards Sir Thomas lived the life of a leisured gentleman, preoccupied with his family from his second marriage. He corresponded with and was closely associated with influential horticulturists including John Evelyn, John Rea, and John Rose, keeper of St James's gardens for Charles II. He was a copious note-taker and compiled a manuscript which, although completed in 1659, was not formally published until 1933 under the title The Garden Book of Sir Thomas Hanmer. This contained descriptive and cultural notes dealing with herbaceous plants, trees, and fruit. His text gave a perceptive and rare insight into a gentleman's garden of the time and the use of the winter house or room, which was an early form of conservatory used for the unseasonal cultivation of tender plants. Sir Thomas is credited with being the first English author to mention the cedar of Lebanon, predicting its future importance. He also contributed a chapter to John Evelyn's unpublished text 'Elysium Britannicum'.
Like many horticulturists of his time, Sir Thomas favoured tulips, but was interested in anemones, primroses, and cowslips, which he cultivated in his garden. His most outstanding tulip was one that he imported and named Agate Hanmer, which was characterized by having colours in parallel stripes. He was widely regarded as one of the most significant and influential gardeners of the Cromwellian and Restoration eras, being in the vanguard of those who sought to escape from the constriction and formalism of earlier garden design.
Having been returned for Flintshire at a by-election in 1669, Hanmer was a moderately active MP. He was listed on several occasions as a government supporter and speaker, endorsing both the suppression of conventicles and the land tax proposed in 1670, and was claimed to be receiving a £500 p.a. pension. He died on 6 October 1678 at Bettisfield, and was buried at Hanmer. His eldest son from his first marriage, John, an esquire of the body to Charles II, succeeded not only to his baronetcy but also, in 1681, to the Flintshire parliamentary seat
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