HANBURY, John (1575-1658), of St. Nicholas, Gloucester; later of Hoarstone, Worcs.

Hanbury came from a widespread Worcestershire family, and was apprenticed to his uncle, Richard Hanbury, who sat for Minehead in 1593. In 1603 Richard settled property in Worcestershire on his nephew, who inherited further lands from his mother in the same county in 1616-17. Locke, 119; VCH Worcs. iii. 117 On becoming a freeman of the Goldsmiths’ Company, Hanbury formed a partnership with one William Michell making rings, and presumably other jewellery, in London. Goldsmiths’ Hall, London, min. bk. 1605-11, p. 497. On the death of his uncle in 1608, Hanbury, having been appointed executor of the will, became responsible for safeguarding an investment of £5,000 in iron works in Gloucestershire and Monmouthshire, and for the sale and distribution of the iron produced throughout the country. PROB 11/112, ff. 93-4. In 1614 he was elected a warden of the Goldsmiths, but preferred to pay a £50 fine instead. Goldsmiths’ Hall, London, min. bk. 1611-17, pp. 189-90. He settled in Gloucester after his marriage to the daughter of alderman Capell, who brought him a ‘large marriage portion’. Locke, 125; PROB 11/292, f. 97. In 1619 he again preferred to fine rather than serve as warden of the Goldsmiths because ‘his occasions would not permit him to serve the place in person’. Nevertheless he retained a ‘dwelling house’ in Cheapside, which he leased from the company, until at least 1622. In that year he was given permission to sell the lease, which suggests that he no longer wanted a London base, although in the event he preferred to sub-let the property. Goldsmiths’ Hall, London, min. bks. 1617-24, pp. 401-2, 489, 554; 1645-8, f. 197. Elected to the third Caroline Parliament, Hanbury was the only Gloucester Member of the period to hold no municipal office. He was among those ordered to consider the petitions of the Goldsmiths’ Company and the exchangers on 13 June 1628, CD 1628, iii. 289. and to consider a private estate bill on 23 Feb. 1629. CJ, i. 932b.

In 1635 Hanbury cleared himself from charges of sharp practice over the bankruptcy of William Glasbrooke, who served him ‘in buying and selling of iron’. C8/66/87; C78/414/13. He was a parliamentarian in the Civil War but was sufficiently moderate in his religion to sign a petition on behalf of Bishop Goodman in 1649. R. Austin, ‘Godfrey Goodman, Bishop of Gloucester’, Trans. Bristol and Glos. Arch. Soc. lxiv. 162. In 1643 his house in Worcestershire was plundered by the royalists and about £3-400 worth of his iron was seized by (Sir) William Russell*, the governor of Worcester. Nevertheless he remained sufficiently wealthy to pay £240 to renew the lease of the house Cheapside in 1648. C22/259/58; Diary of Henry Townshend ed. J.W. Willis Bund (Worcs. Hist. Soc. 1920), ii. 151; Goldsmiths’ Hall, London, min. bk. 1645-8, f. 215. He was said to have bribed the agent of the sequestrations committee not to prosecute one of his wife’s family for delinquency. CCC, 227. He made his will on 26 Dec. 1657, in which he made Thomas Pury† one of his overseers, PROB 11/292, f. 97v. and died in the following July. He was buried in St. Nicholas, Gloucester, where his gravestone describes him as ‘prudent, eminent [and] munificent’. His portrait was painted by Daniel Mytens. Ex inf. R. Hanbury-Tenison. His grandson sat for Gloucester from 1701 to 1708 and for Monmouthshire from 1720. T.D. Fosbrooke, Original Hist. of City of Gloucester, 183.