HALES, Sir John (1603-1639), of Tunstall, Kent

Hales should be distinguished from a younger son of the Hales family of Coventry, who was knighted in Scotland as a gentleman pensioner in 1617. Vis. Warws. (Harl. Soc. xii), 273. Following a conventional education, this Member was married to his seventeen-year-old step-sister, thereby enabling his father to gain control of the remaining Cromer estates in north Kent. He was subsequently granted the freedom of Queenborough, where his father defeated the earl of Montgomery’s (Sir Philip Herbert*) candidate, Robert Poley, a few weeks later. Poley regained the seat the following year, but after his death Hales reasserted his family’s interest. However, he took no known part in the third Caroline Parliament. It is unclear whether he was the Sir John Hales of London who belonged to the Westminster Soapmakers’ Company in 1636. C66/2788/10; PC2/47, f. 33.

Hales died in October 1639, and was buried at Tunstall. His son Edward succeeded as 2nd baronet in 1654, and sat for Maidstone and Queenborough after the Restoration. Mores, 96.