Family and Education

b. c.1568, 1st s. of John Hele I, bro. of John II. educ. I. Temple 1581. m. (1) Mary, da. of John Halse of Kenedon, s.p.; (2) Margaret, da. of Sir William Courtenay of Powderham, s.p. Kntd. 1603; suc. fa. 1608.

Offices Held

Treasurer for maimed soldiers, Devon (with Gregory Sprint) by 1600; j.p. Devon from c.1601, sheriff 1618-19.

Biography

Hele, son of the money-lender and heir to his large local estates, sat in one Elizabethan Parliament, when he served on a Commons committee considering arms and armour, 8 Nov. 1597. He died 15 Jan. 1626, leaving in his will a 40s. ring apiece to half a dozen friends ‘and to all the rest that were my followers when I was sheriff of Devon’.

Vivian, Vis. Devon, 190, 247, 464; J. Brooking-Rowe, Hist. Plympton Erle, 70; CSP Dom. 1603-10, p. 657; C142/423/80; D’Ewes, 553; PCC 1 Hele.

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: P. W. Hasler

Notes

• 1. Did not serve for the full duration of the Parliament.