Family and Education

b. c.1589, 1st s. of Sir John Hatcher of Careby and his 1st w. Anne, da. of James Crewes of Fotheringay, Northants.2 educ. Emmanuel, Camb. 1603; L. Inn 1607.3 m. 14 Oct. 1617, Katherine, da. of William Ayscough, of South Kelsey, Lincs., 1s. 1da.4 suc. fa. 1640.5 bur. 11 July 1677.6

Offices Held

Commr. sewers, Stamford, Lincs. 1618, R. Gleane in Lincs. and Notts. 1619, 1625, 1627, R. Welland, Lincs., Rutland and Northants. 1623, 1634, 1664, Lincoln and Lincs. 1629-34, 1636-8, 1660-70, Lincs. and Notts. 1639, 1642, 1654-9;7 freeman, Lincoln 1624;8 j.p. Lincs. (Kesteven) 1627-50, 1657-d., (Holland) 1657-60, (Lindsey) aft. 1660-d.;9 commr. exacted fees, Lincs. and Lincoln 1633, Rutland 1634,10 charitable uses, Lincs. 1634-5,11 swans, Lincs. 1635, 1664,12 subsidy, Kevesten 1641,13 disarming recusants, Lincs. 1641;14 dep. lt. Lincs. by 1642-at least 1660;15 commr. militia, Lincs. 1642, 1648, 1660, sequestration 1643, levying money 1643, defence of Eastern Assoc. 1643, assessment. Lincs. 1644-9, 1657, 1660-d., New Model Ordinance 1645,16 oyer and terminer, Lincs. 1645, Midlands circuit 1660-2;17 sub-commr. drainage, Fenland 1653.18

Capt. of horse (parl.) 1642, col. by 1645;19 gov. Lincoln 1644-5.20

Commr. Scottish affairs 1643-5, treating with Scotland 1645,21 exclusion from sacrament 1646, compounding 1647, scandalous offences 1648,22 Admlty. causes 1648.23

Biography

This Member’s great-grandfather, a regius professor of physic at Cambridge, acquired the manor of Careby in 1560.24 Hatcher’s marriage in 1617 confirmed his standing among the leading families of the Lincolnshire gentry. With the support of his kinsmen Sir William Armyne, 1st bt.*, and Sir Edward Ayscough*, both of whom shared his puritan outlook, he became the first member of his family to sit in Parliament, winning a seat at Lincoln in 1624. He was appointed to two private bill committees in the last Jacobean Parliament, one of which was to confirm an exchange of lands between his colleague, Sir Lewis Watson* and Prince Charles (9 April 1624).25 Although he does not appear to have stood for Parliament in 1625 or 1626, Hatcher was returned at the general election in 1628 for Grantham, ten miles north-west of Careby, presumably backed by Armyne, who had some influence in the borough. Hatcher was appointed to two committees in the first session, on bills to reform abuses in the winding of wool (23 Apr. 1628) and to make the Medway navigable (12 May).26 His only appointment in the brief second session was to consider a private bill concerning the endowment of the London Charterhouse by the executors of the late Thomas Sutton (20 Feb. 1629).27 (Sir) John Eliot* described Hatcher as one of ‘the honest sons of Lincolnshire’, and after the dissolution Hatcher visited the Members imprisoned in the Tower, and tried to speak to Benjamin Valentine*.28 He later proofread Eliot’s ‘Monarchy of Man’, which he praised for the ‘excellency of the matter, the exquisiteness and beauty of the form’.29

Hatcher’s father, who was named as a Ship Money defaulter in 1636, died in 1640, leaving Hatcher the manor of Careby and substantial adjoining estates.30 Having fought with the Parliamentary army during the Civil War, Hatcher refused to sit in the Rump, but he did represent his county in the Protectorate Parliaments.31 He died in 1677, apparently intestate, and was buried at Careby on 11 July. His only son, John, represented Stamford in 1660, but with this the family parliamentary record came to an end.

Ref Volumes: 1604-1629

Authors: Paula Watson / Rosemary Sgroi

Notes

• 1. Did not sit after Pride’s Purge, 6 Dec. 1648. Readmitted 21 Feb. 1660.
• 2. Lincs. Peds. (Harl. Soc. li), 469-70.
• 3. Al. Cant.; LI Admiss.
• 4. T. Blore, Rutland, 134.
• 5. Cal. Lincoln Wills ed. C.W. Foster (Index Lib. xli), 85.
• 6. Lincs. Peds. (Harl. Soc. li), 470.
• 7. C181/2, ff. 330v, 353v; 181/3, ff. 99v, 169, 229; 181/4, ff. 40, 155, 161; 181/5, ff. 42v, 112, 149v, 223v; 181/6, pp. 38, 393; 181/7, pp. 76, 282, 544.
• 8. Lincs. AO, L1/1/1/4, ff. 195, 198v.
• 9. C231/4, f. 218v; 231/6, pp. 190, 370; C193/13/3, f. 38; 193/13/6, ff. 49v, 51v; C220/9/4, f. 45; HMC Lords, i. 183.
• 10. C181/4, ff. 158v, 159.
• 11. C192/1, unfol.
• 12. C181/5, f. 14v; 181/7, p. 299.
• 13. SR, v. 85.
• 14. LJ, iv. 385a.
• 15. LJ, v. 131b; SP29/11, f. 208.
• 16. Lincs. AO, Holywell ms H93/18; A. and O. i. 114, 232, 294, 539, 622, 641, 968, 1086, 1239; ii. 37, 302, 1072, 1372, 1435; SR, v. 215, 815.
• 17. C181/5, f. 252; 181/7, pp. 16, 137.
• 18. CSP Dom. 1652-3, p. 447.
• 19. E. Peacock, Army Lists, 53; HMC Portland, i. 80; CSP Dom. 1644-5, pp. 58, 367.
• 20. J.W.F. Hill, Tudor and Stuart Lincoln, 159.
• 21. A. and O. i. 197-8, 738; CJ, iv. 105b, 366b.
• 22. A. and O. i. 738, 853, 914, 1209.
• 23. CJ, v. 476b.
• 24. CPR, 1558-60, p. 371.
• 25. CJ, i. 758b.
• 26. CD 1628, iii. 44, 367.
• 27. CJ, i. 931b.
• 28. HMC Cowper, i. 383.
• 29. C. Holmes, Seventeenth-Cent. Lincs. 78, 109.
• 30. CSP Dom. 1635-6, p. 289; 1636-7, p. 397; Lincs. AO, Holywell ms H97/22/1.
• 31. M.F. Keeler, Long Parl. 208.