RobertVowell(Robert Vowell)HookerMPaka Vowell
Born about in Exeter, Devon, England
Ancestors 
Son
of John Hookerand Alice (Druitt) Hooker
[sibling(s) unknown]
Husband ofMargery (Bolter) Hooker— married[date unknown] [location unknown]
Husband ofAgnes (Dobell) Hooker— married[date unknown] [location unknown]
Descendants 
Father ofJohn Vowell Hooker MP
Died about at about age 71in Exeter, Devon, England
Problems/Questions
Profile last modified | Created 6 Aug 2010
This page has been accessed 4,548 times.
Contents
- 1 Biography
- 1.1 Event
- 1.2 Death
- 2 Sources
- 2.1 References
Biography
Member of Parliament 1534 (did not serve the full term). Cambridge 1488. Bailiff, 1522-3, member of the Twenty-Four June 1523 to Aug. 1524, receiver 1526-7, mayor 1529-30, warden of the bridge Oct. 1533.[1] Married (1) Margaret, da. of Richard Duke of Exeter, 2s. 1da.; (2) Agnes, da. of John Cort; (3) Agnes, da. of John Doble of Woodbridge, Suff., 3s. inc. John 4da. suc. Fa. by 25 Oct. 1496.
Date of birth estimated from admission as freeman.[2] The youngest in a family of 20 children. Robert Hooker had been constrained to begin his career as the ‘register’ or registrar of Barnstaple, but the catastrophic mortality which carried off every one of his brothers and sisters left him as the sole heir. He was to be remembered as ‘very well learned in the civil law’ (which might identify him with the man of his surname who went up to Cambridge in 1488 to read law), and ‘a good and upright mayor, and a great peacemaker’. Although admitted as a freeman by apprenticeship in the year 1486-7 and later practicing as a merchant, Hooker did not cut much of a figure in Exeter until shortly before his admission to the Twenty-Four, but within six years of this achievement he attained the mayoralty.[3]
After five years he entered the House of Commons, at the age of nearly 70 in 1529. The choice of so venerable a figure is the more striking because the by-election of 10 Oct. 1534 resulted from the withdrawal on grounds of ill-health of John Blackaller, a man nearly 30 years his junior. The virtually unanimous vote for Hooker—he was the only one to vote against—testifies to his colleagues’ agreement in the matter. His own dissent may have meant that he was genuinely reluctant to serve, for little more than two months before (7 Aug.) he had made his will. In the event he survived both this Parliament and its successor of June 1536, to which he was doubtless re-elected in accordance with the King’s general request for the return of the previous Members. What part, if any, he took in the proceedings is unknown. Some months before his first election he had played host at Exeter to Lady Margaret Douglas, Henry VIII’s niece, after she and her ladies had attended a sermon preached by Hugh Latimer; it was a sign of his standing in the city and perhaps a recommendation for his choice as one of its Members at Westminster.[4]
Hooker died on 9 Aug. 1537 during an outbreak of plague in Exeter. By his will he had asked for masses to be said for his own soul and those of his parents and wives, and had provided for his wife, his sole executrix, and his children: until his son John came of age the widow was to have the custody of his property. At the inquisition post mortem held at Plympton on 18 Oct. 1538 it was found that Hooker had held land in Clayhanger, Exiland, Satinole and Widecombe, and that the heir, evidently a child of his last marriage, was ten years old; the cloth in Hooker’s shop was valued for probate at £8 and the plate in his house at £65. His son was to become the historian of Exeter and another MP.[5]
Event
- 1520 Mayor of Exeter, Devon, England
Death
- August 9, 1537 Exeter, Devon, England
Sources
- http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1509-1558/member/hooker-%28hoker%29-robert-1466-1537
- The House of Commons, 1509-1558 edited by Stanley T. Bindoff, Boydell & Brewer, 1982, page 385. http://books.google.com/books?id=u_eIrJpc_T0C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
- Ancestry Family Trees: http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=283722&pid=130754033
- Clarke, Louise Brownell. The Greenes of Rhode Island (Knickerbocker Press, New York, 1903) Page 53
- http://www.redbirdacres.net/greenehistory.html
- Hooker, Edward. The Descendants of Rev. Thomas Hooker, Hartford, Connecticut, 1586-1908 (Rochester, N.Y., 1909) Page xi: "Robert Hooker Mayor of City of Exeter"
References
- ↑ Exeter Freemen (Devon and Cornw. Rec. Soc. extra ser. i), 59; Trans. Dev. Assoc. lx. 211; Exeter act bk. 1, ff. 102, 135.
- ↑ Vis. Devon, ed. Colby, 136; PCC 10 Crumwell has been followed where there is disagreement over Hooker’s genealogy—there is confusion in many secondary works, notably the preface to J. Hoker, The description of the citie of Excester (Devon and Cornw. Rec. Soc. xi).
- ↑ C1/745/8; Exeter, Hooker’s commonplace bk. f. 340v; bk. 55, f. 57v.
- ↑ C219/18A/3, 4; Exeter act bk. 1, f. 140; PCC 10 Crumwell; J. A. Youings, Early Tudor Exeter: the Founders of the County of the City (inaugural lecture, Exeter Univ. 1974), 14-15; B. F. Cresswell, Exeter Churches, 112-13.
- ↑ HMC Exeter, 361; C142/60/96; Hooker’s commonplace bk. f. 343v; Prob. 2/226.
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Isaac Taylor
Our cited source, History of Parliament, does not agree with our present birth year of 1466. Rather it explicitly says:
- born by 1466
- he was "nearly 70" in 1529, which implies a birth year as early as 1459
We may be able to better date his birth by looking carefully at records of the 19 elder siblings, and age/dates for his mother Agnes DREWELL (daughter of Richard of Exeter). Note they all died presumably, like him later, of the plague: "but the catastrophic mortality which carried off every one of his brothers and sisters left him as the sole heir."
Separately, given his son John "was to become the historian of Exeter" has anybody found artifacts of his work?
Overall, it would seem better to give him a birth year window of "Between 1460-65" or "Before 1466" not about?
postedby Isaac Taylor
editedby Isaac Taylor
J Decker
Would someone with the proper pre-1500 certification please add son Richard Hooker-3080. Thanks in advance.
Dictionary of National Biography, Volumes 1-22: https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/1981/images/31205_Vol9-01202?pId=30159
postedby J Decker
Rodney Rarick
Seriously,19 Siblings? Is that possible...LOL!
postedby Rodney Rarick
[Living Bethune]
Can't see where his middle name comes from: any clues?
postedby [Living Bethune]
J Decker
Vowell was another last name, used interchangeably. "The original name of the family was Vowell (or Voell), but in the fifteenth century members of it called themselves Vowell alias Hooker, and in the sixteenth century the original name was generally dropped." - Dictionary of National Biography, Volumes 1-22 for Roger Vowell
postedby J Decker
Isaac Taylor
It's addressed briefly here, in the cited source:
postedby Isaac Taylor
Isaac Taylor
Living Bethune,
Great question! It probably comes from the Welsh Voyle or Voel, summary of etymology here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyle
It is common for Welsh patronyms (Son ap Dad) to become frozen/heritable surnames, and simultaneously morph towards anglo words or spelling. The most famous example is the Tudor dynasty. If you watch "Wolf Hall" on PBS/BBC there is a throwaway line early in the show where Henry VIII complains about the complexity of names and naming conventions in this era (broadly).
The etymology of the Welsh adjective (and sometimes name) Voel which is probably originating with the Proto-Celtic mailos meaning 'cut' https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Celtic/mailos or possibly the Hebrew mohel meaning 'circumciser' (again, to cut), versus the English noun (and sometimes name) vowell for (from Proto-Indo-Euro for 'to speak' via Latin via French voieul) are totally unrelated.
For this family, even if it's spelled Vowell it comes from Voel or Voyle. This is perhaps same surname as more familiar Foyle (due to the f-is-v thing, in Welsh, which is the same as u-is-v and i-is-j in Latin etc) and all originally from the older Welsh adjective moel, meaning bald. It can mean a bald person or bald-topped hill. This head vs hilltop duality is identical in English, though old fashioned now to call a bare hill "baldy" that was common for a long time. It's baked into the definition of bald, per this man Hooker's not-too-distant relation Noah Webster see Merriam-Webster link below:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bald_Hill
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldy_Bowl
- https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bald
So it's likely just an adjectival nickname that stuck, then became a surname. (But was then abandoned for a placename or older/alternate family name.) A lot of Welsh family names frozen into (or by, in essence, what amounted to peer pressure from the) English come from dad or grampa's descriptive or familiar nickname.
I haven't researched this family but it's possible the father wasn't actually ever named Voel, rather it was grandfather's nickname. This is similar to how say a man called Rhys VAUGHAN in England or New England can also simultaneously be, in Welsh and to his family, Rhys ap Davydd "Fychan" (meaning: Rhys is the son of David the younger ie junior, is the son of David the elder ie senior); and same Rhys is also grandson of David "Hen" (the elder) who is... son of (ap)... Rhys, the patriarch. In this hypothetical case, we end up with a whole family and hundreds of living descendants all surnamed Vaughan just because of the junior/senior thing.
In the actual case of the Hooker-Vowell profiles, pretend "grampa Rhys" was the bald one, and rich or famous enough that everybody knew who he was so it stuck; or perhaps he had many cousins also called Rhys, so he had to be referred to as Rhys the Bald not Rhys Junior or Rhys the Red etc.
Consider this convo at some court or customshouse:You there! Are you Rhys ap David "Voel", or Rhys ap David "Vychan"? No, that's my cousin. Which one are you? Foel. What? Fv-ow-ell. Rhys ap David Foel. OK, that's spelled V-o-a-l? No, it's Ef-Ef-oow-oww-ell-ell-ell, I think. I don't know, I don't write. You can just call me Rhys Vowel, sure. (Meanwhile the guy's name is actually Rhys ap David fychan ap David hen ap the legendary warlord Rhys 'the Bald' of Holker, Cumbria (ie. Hooker) but the clerk is hopeless so they keep it simple. And it sticks for a century.
This is not much different from what happened at Ellis Island to millions of new Americans. Still does!
Hope that's helpful!
postedby Isaac Taylor
editedby Isaac Taylor
C. Mackinnon
HOP says his wives were Margaret, da. of Richard Duke of Exeter, Agnes, da. of John Cort; and Agnes, da. of John Doble of Woodbridge, Suff.,
postedby C. Mackinnon
Rejected matches› Thomas Hooker (abt.1500-bef.1562)› John Hooker (abt.1447-abt.1493)
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