| Name: |
John HOOKER1 |
| Sex: |
Male |
| Alt. Name: |
John HOKER |
| Alt. Name: |
John VOWELL |
| Father: |
Robert Vowell HOOKER (c. 1473-1538) |
| Mother: |
Agnes DOBELL (c. 1500- ) |
| Birth |
c.1527 |
Exeter, Devon, England |
| Education |
Dr. Moreman's School, |
Menheniot, Cornwall |
| Education |
Exeter College, |
Oxford University, Oxford |
| Education |
Studied Law |
Cologne, Germany |
| Residence |
Between 1542 and 1556 |
with Peter Martyr Vermigli, Strasbourg, Alsace |
| Occupation |
Between 1555 and 1601 (age 35-82) |
Chamberlain of Exeter. Appointed 21 September 1555. |
|
|
Tudor Exeter, a prosperous city with a population rising to perhaps eight or nine thousand, was the economic and political centre of the south-west. The grant of county status in 1537 meant that it had its own sheriff and, by the Elizabethan period, its own lord lieutenant. The government of the city was in the hands of the chamber, a self-perpetuating body of 24 councilmen, recruited for the most part from the wealthiest merchant families. The chamber provided the mayor and the sheriff each year, while eight of their number, together with the recorder, enjoyed the rank of alderman. There were also four bailiffs, the senior of whom was the receiver of revenues.
|
| Occupation |
1568 |
MP for Athenry, Ireland |
| Occupation |
1571 |
MP for Exeter |
| Occupation |
1586 |
MP for Exeter |
| |
|
Election writs were sent to the sheriff of the city, who conducted elections in the guildhall. Candidates had to be resident freemen. The electors, in theory, were the freeholders and they are so described in the act book of the chamber in 1588. On other occasions, however, they are called simply the commons or (as on the surviving returns) the citizens of Exeter. It is clear that they were expected to approve the two names presented to them by the chamber. For example in 1588 the chamber, ‘having thought and considered what persons should be most fit to be proposed to the freeholders at the next county day’, suggested Edward Drew and John Peryam as ‘the fittest persons’ to be elected, ‘if the said freeholders ... shall so like or think it good’. But by the early Stuart period, if not earlier, the freeholders were objecting to the formal nature of their role in the procedure. As early as 1593, when the chamber put forward two names as usual, it was agreed that the electors might nominate others and choose ‘whom they like better.
The Exeter MPs in this period were either leading merchants or legal advisers to the city.John Hooker alias Vowell, chamberlain for many years, kept a journal of the 1571 Parliament.
Exeter usually paid wages to its Members. In 1558 the rate was 3s.4d. a day, rising to 4 s. in
1571 and to 5s. by 1589, but in 1597 it was reduced to 4s. ‘after the old rule’. Hooker carefully worked out his own payment in 1571 including eight days’ travelling expenses. |
| Occupation |
by 1583 |
Coroner, Exeter |
| Occupation |
1564 |
Bailiff Exilond [ Exe Island], Exeter |
| Occupation |
1566 |
Judge of Admiralty Court, Devon |
| Occupation |
|
English historian, writer, solicitor, antiquary, and civic administrator |
| Death |
1601 (age 81-82) |
|
| Burial |
1601 |
Exeter, Devon, England |
|
Possibly in the Cathedral |
