Catalogue description HAWKESWORTH OF STOKE SUB HAMDON MANUSCRIPTS

Deeds and estate papers from the Hawkesworth estate at Stoke Sub Hamdon. The manuscripts were received in three separate deposits which are described below:-

DD\HW/1-13 are the surviving deeds of the former College at Stoke sub Hamdon and date from the period of the Robinson family's ownership, which goes back beyond 1610. For accounts of the establishment of the collegiate chantry see Proceedings of the Somerset Archaeological Society, vols.32 and 35 and V.C.H. vol.II. The property was subsequently called Parsonage Farm and more recently The Priory. The estate was purchased by Thomas Rodbard, fishmonger of London in 1712 from Sir John Robinson's widow. It remained with the Rodbard family until 1793 when Elizabeth Rodbard (formerly Ellis), who had inherited under the will of John Rodbard, married Dr. Andrew Bain. The deeds cease before the acquisition by the Hawkesworth family, but this presumably took place in or soon after 1828.

DD\HW/14-17 are clearly part of the same archive group as DD\HW/1-13. They were, however, misdirected - one bundle in 1938 [DD/HW 17 below] and the remainder in 1940 - to the Keeper of the Archives, Somerset County Museum, Taunton, and remained there unnoticed until transferred in February 1967.

DD\HW/18-34 relate to Stoke Parsonage and demonstrate the history of its ownership both backwards and forwards from the group of deeds which formed the first deposit (DD\HW/1-13) marking at the one end the reversionary grant to John Robinson in 1591 and recording at the other the partition between Bain heiresses in 1828, followed immediately by the marriage of Sarah Frances, to whom the Stoke property fell, to the Rev. Henry Magan and her second marriage, as a widow, three years later in 1831 to Thomas Hawkesworth. The latter family's interest in Stoke continued to 1947.

The Victoria County History, vol. III includes (p. 240-1) an account of the history of this estate.

Hawkesworth family of Somerset

H/311

C/1540 a

S/845; S/995*

• Stoke sub Hamdon, Somerset