Anthony Hammond (1668–1738), of Somersham Place, Somersham, Huntingdonshire and Lidlington, Bedfordshire, was an English official and Tory politician who sat in the English and British House of Commons between 1695 and 1708.[1] He was also known as a poet and pamphleteer.[2][3]

Early life

Hammond was born on 1 September 1668, the eldest son of Anthony Hammond, D.L., of Somersham Place, Somersham, Huntingdonshire,[4] who was the third son of Anthony Hammond (1608–1661) of St Alban's Court, Nonington, Kent.[5] His mother was Amy Browne (died 1693), daughter of Henry Browne of Hasfield House,[6] Gloucestershire. He was educated at home under Mr Kay from 1675 to 1676, at Willingham, Cambridgeshire under Samuel Saywell from 1676 to 1683 and at St Paul's School from 1684 to 1685. He succeeded his father, who died in 1680[1] and has a monument in Somersham church.[4]

He was admitted at Gray's Inn in 1684 and at St John's College, Cambridge in 1685.[7] It was told that he smuggled the actress and playwright Susanna Centlivre into his college, where she was disguised as a male cousin, "Jack". There (by this report) she remained hidden for some months studying grammar.[8][9] He made many and varied friendships with political and literary figures. He entered the company of radical Whig theorists, including Walter Moyle. Through Moyle he probably came into the circle of Tory and Whig ideologues and virtuosi who gathered at the Grecian Coffee House in the Strand, in London.[10]

When he came of age in 1689, Hammond was appointed to the Huntingdonshire lieutenancy and was made a colonel in the county militia.[1] He was probably included on the commission of the peace. He was elected a Conservator to the Board of the Bedford Level Corporation, becoming a Bailiff of that company (in the place of Roger Jenyns, Surveyor General of the Fens, deceased) in 1693: he surrendered his bailiwick to James Fortrey in 1704, but resumed his place as a Conservator until 1712, when his duties of service in Spain prevented his further active participation upon the committee.[11]

In 1690, he travelled abroad in the Low Countries. From February to September 1694, he was captain of foot in Thomas Farrington's regiment.[1][12] He married Jane Clarges, daughter of Sir Walter Clarges, 1st Baronet, at Tunbridge Wells, Kent, on 14 August 1694.[13] That was a family prominent in politics, which included leading members of the Tory party.[1] Hammond was a regular guest at the Surrey home of Sir Walter Clarges, who was similarly acquainted with the Grecian Tavern set.[14]

Parliamentary career

At the 1695 English general election, Hammond was returned as Tory Member of Parliament for Huntingdonshire in a hard-fought contest. He voted in March 1696 against fixing the price of guineas at 22 shillings, and refused to subscribe the Association which lost him his position on the commission of peace. He was active in opposing the attainder of Sir John Fenwick.[1]

After a quarrel that arose during a debate in the committee of privileges over the Cambridgeshire election, he fought a duel with Lord William Powlett on 27 January 1697/98, and was wounded in the thigh.[15] In parliament he spoke principally on financial questions.[1] At the 1698 English general election, Hammond was returned as MP for the University of Cambridge, and was made M.A. as a member of St John's College.[7] Shortly afterward, he published anonymously Considerations upon the choice of a Speaker of the House of Commons in the approaching Session, in which he tacitly recommended Robert Harley for the office of Speaker against Sir Edward Seymour and Sir Thomas Littleton.[16] Littleton was elected Speaker on 6 December 1698. This tract has been often reprinted.[2]

Hammond was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society 30 November 1698 and admitted 30 October 1700,[17] but had withdrawn by 1718. He was returned again as MP for Cambridge University at the first general election of 1701. In September, however, when dining in a Haymarket tavern with Tory friends Charles Davenant and John Tredenham,[18][19] he was compromised when they were unexpectedly joined by the French chargé d'affaires Chevalier Jean-Baptiste de Poussin, upon which the Whigs built great political capital against him.[20][21] At the November general election of 1701, he was defeated by Isaac Newton, although Edward Villiers, 1st Earl of Jersey, Lord Chamberlain, had written to the university in his favour.[22] He found consolation in penning some Considerations upon Corrupt Elections of Members to serve in Parliament in 1701.[23]

On 17 June 1701, he had been appointed a commissioner for stating the public accounts. Under Godolphin's administration he was made a Commissioner of the Navy in May 1702,[24] and again entered parliament as member for Huntingdon at the 1702 English general election. At the 1708 British general election, he was returned for New Shoreham, Sussex, but on the ensuing 7 December the House decided by a majority of eighteen that, as commissioner of the navy and employed in the out ports, he was incapable of being elected or of voting as a member of the house, and therefore a new writ was ordered the next day.[1][25]

From paymaster to debtor

In 1711, Hammond left England to take up his appointment as deputy-paymaster or treasurer of the British forces in Spain.[26] The Duke of Argyll, commander-in-chief, complained of him for irregularity. Paymaster Hon. James Brydges, however, upheld Hammond in a report to Lord Treasurer Dartmouth, dated 11 November 1712, justifying the payments made by him to Portuguese troops.[27]

Following his arrest for debt in 1714 his affairs became hopelessly involved. According to Thomas Hearne, Hammond attempted to assassinate the Old Pretender in 1715.[28] He was frequently in debtors' prison during his later life, where he occupied himself with literary pursuits. Retiring to the Fleet Prison, he was able to preserve the remains of his estate for his eldest son.[1] Hearne wrote of him, "...at present a prisoner for debt in the King's Bench, and prostitutor of his pen for bread..."[28] Thomas Cooke, translator of Hesiod, who made Hammond's acquaintance in 1722, wrote of him:

"He was a well-bred man, had but a small portion of solid understanding, and was a great flatterer. He was a pleasant story-teller, and seldom sad. He courted men of letters and genius, and was fond of being taken notice of by them in their writings. He would ask them to mention him in their works: he asked it of me."[29]

Later works

In 1720, Hammond edited A New Miscellany of Original Poems, Translations, and Imitations, by the Most Eminent Hands, viz. Mr. Prior, Mr. Pope, Mr. Hughes, Mr. Harcourt, Lady M[ary] W[ortley] M[ontagu], Mrs. Manley, &c., now first published from their respective manuscripts. With some Familiar Letters, by the late Earl of Rochester, never before printed: in the 'Preface' he claimed as his own some pieces which had been ascribed to others, including the Ode on Solitude attributed to the Earl of Roscommon.[30]

In 1721, he permitted the publication of his Solitudinis Munus: or, Hints for Thinking.[31] He also wrote a reasoned retrospect of the South Sea Bubble year, entitled A Modest Apology. He remarked that he had made a list of 107 bubbles with a nominal stock of £93,600,000, involving a loss of £14,040,000.[32]

Hammond prefixed to Walter Moyle's Works (1727) a memoir (signed 'A.H.'): they had been intimate friends from 1690.[33] Hammond contributed a 'character' of Edward Russell, 1st Earl of Orford to The Present State of the Republick of Letters for October 1730, from which Robert Samber drew his information for a verse eulogy on Orford in 1731:[34] also he wrote another financial pamphlet entitled The National Debt as it stood at Michaelmas 1730, stated and explained.[35]

His Collections and Extracts relating to the Affairs of the Nation, with an Autobiographical Diary, extending from 1660 to 1730, is preserved in the Bodleian Library.[36] There are numerous Hammond manuscripts among the Rawlinson Collection at the Bodleian, and others among the Portland, Cowper and Stuart papers in the Historical Manuscripts Commission.[23]

Death and issue

Hammond died in the Fleet in 1738, but his estate was not administered until 8 April 1749. His wife died in 1749.[37] They had two surviving sons:

  • Thomas Hammond, who died childless about 1758. His father's estate was settled on Thomas in 1725, and he and his mother Amy purchased several estates dependant on Somersham formerly held by copyhold. He received a grant of the manor of Somersham in 1741, and sold it in 1743 in trust to Robert, Duke of Manchester.[4]
  • James Hammond (1710–1742), poet and politician,[38][39]

and three surviving daughters including

He wrote a short character-sketch of himself which was published in 1809.[43]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 D.W. Hayton, 'Hammond, Anthony (1668-1738), of Somersham Place, Hunts.; Lidlington, Beds.; Piccadilly and Albemarle Street, Westminster', in D. Hayton, E. Cruickshanks and S. Handley (eds), The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1690-1715 (from Boydell and Brewer 2002), History of Parliament Online.
  2. 1 2 Goodwin, Gordon (1890). "Hammond, Anthony (1668-1738)" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 24. pp. 239–240.
  3. ↑ W.A. Speck, 'Hammond, Anthony (1668-1739)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (OUP 2004).
  4. 1 2 3 'Parishes: Somersham', in W. Page, G. Proby and S. Inskip Ladds (eds), A History of the County of Huntingdon Volume 2 (V.C.H., London 1932), pp. 223–30 (British History Online, accessed 30 May 2023).
  5. ↑ For these Hammonds, see E. Hasted, 'Parishes: Nonington', in The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent Volume 9 (Canterbury 1800), pp. 251–62 (British History Online, accessed 30 May 2023).
  6. ↑ The Browne family held an estate centred on the Great House, Hasfield, see 'Parishes: Hasfield', in C.R. Elrington (ed.), A History of the County of Gloucester, Volume 8 (V.C.H., London 1968), pp. 284–85 (British History Online, accessed 30 May 2023).
  7. 1 2 "Hammond, Anthony (HMNT685A)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  8. ↑ 'Mrs Susanna Centlivre', in J. Mottley, A List of all the Dramatic Authors, with some account of their lives, &c., appended to T. Whincop, Scanderbeg: Or, Love and Liberty: A Tragedy (W. Reeve, London 1747), at pp. 185–86.
  9. ↑ J.W. Bowyer, The Celebrated Mrs Centlivre (Duke University Press, Durham N.C. 1952), pp. 7–11 (Internet Archive).
  10. ↑ A. Chalmers (ed.), 'Hammond (Anthony, esq.)', in The General Biographical Dictionary, New, Revised and Enlarged Edition, vol. XVII (J. Nichols & Son, etc., London 1814), pp. 110–11.
  11. ↑ S. Wells, The History of the Drainage of the Great Level of the Fens, called Bedford Level 2 volumes (Author, London 1830), I, pp. 464–76.
  12. ↑ W.J. Hardy (ed.), Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reign of William and Mary, 1694-1695 (HMSO 1906), p. 303. Cited in History of Parliament.
  13. ↑ 'Hammond the Poet's Mother', Notes and Queries, 2nd Series, XI (22 June 1861), pp. 493–94 (Wikisource).
  14. ↑ A.A. Hanham, 'Clarges, Sir Walter, 1st Bt. (1653-1706), of Piccadilly, Westminster and Ashley, Surr.', in D. Hayton, E. Cruickshanks and S. Handley (eds), The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1690-1715 (from Boydell and Brewer, 2002), History of Parliament Online.
  15. ↑ N. Luttrell, A Brief Historical Relation of State Affairs from September 1678 to April 1714, 6 volumes (Oxford University Press, 1857), IV, p. 337.
  16. ↑ H. Horwitz, Parliament, Policy and Politics in the Reign of William III (Manchester University Press, 1977), p. 248.
  17. ↑ 'Appendix IV: List of the Fellows of the Royal Society', in T. Thomson, History of the Royal Society (Robert Baldwin, London 1812), Appendices pp. xxi-lxix, at p. xxx.
  18. ↑ Courtney, William Prideaux (1899). "Tredenham, John" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 57. pp. 166–167.
  19. ↑ E. Cruickshanks/S. Handley, 'Tredenham, John (1668-1710), of Tregonan, St. Ewe, Cornw.', in D. Hayton, E. Cruickshanks and S. Handley (eds), The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1690-1715 (from Boydell and Brewer 2002), History of Parliament online.
  20. ↑ A Full and true relation of a horrid and detestable conspiracy against the lives, estates, and reputations of three worthy members of this present Parliament, which God long preserve (London, c. 1701-1702). Full text at eebo.
  21. ↑ 'CLXXXVI. Mr Vernon to the Earl of Rochester, 20 September 1701', in S.W. Singer (ed.), The Correspondence of Henry Hyde, Earl of Clarendon and of his Brother Laurence Hyde Earl of Rochester: with their Diarys from 1687 to 1690, 2 vols (Henry Colburn, London 1828), II, pp. 397–98, and note.
  22. ↑ C.H. Cooper, Annals of Cambridge, 4 volumes (Metcalfe and Palmer, Cambridge 1852), IV, p. 47.
  23. 1 2 I. Watt, ' Considerations upon Corrupt Elections of Members to Serve in Parliament, 1701: by Anthony Hammond, not Defoe', Philological Quarterly; Iowa City Vol. 31 (1 January 1952), p. 45 ff.
  24. ↑ A. Boyer, The History of the Reign of Queen Anne, digested into annals, 11 vols (A. Roper, London 1703), I: Year the First, p. 73.
  25. ↑ N. Luttrell, A Brief Historical Relation of State Affairs from September 1678 to April 1714, 6 volumes (Oxford University Press, 1857), VI, p. 381.
  26. ↑ 'CXXXVII, 26. 18 September 1711. Lord Dartmouth to the Lord High Treasurer', in J. Redington (ed.), Calendar of Treasury Papers, Vol. IV: 1708-1714 (Longmans and Son, London 1874), pp. 312–13 (British History Online). Cited in DNB.
  27. ↑ 'CLIV, 22. 11 November 1712. Report of J. Brydges', in J. Redington (ed.), Calendar of Treasury Papers, Vol. IV: 1708-1714 (Longmans and Son, London 1874), p. 439 (British History Online). Cited in DNB.
  28. 1 2 P. Bliss (ed.), Reliquiæ Hearneianae: The Remains of Thomas Hearne, M.A., of Edmund Hall, 2nd, enlarged edition, 3 vols (John Russell Smith, London 1869), II, p. 290 (Hathi Trust).
  29. ↑ Cited in 'Anecdotes of Mr. Thomas Cooke', The Gentleman's Magazine LXI.ii (1791, Part 2), p. 1090 (Hathi Trust).
  30. ↑ A. H[ammond], comp., A New Miscellany of Original Poems, Translations, and Imitations, by the Most Eminent Hands, &c. (T. Jauncy, London 1720), pageviews at Google.
  31. ↑ (A. Hammond), Solitudinis Munus: or, Hints for Thinking (Printed for James Essex, 1721). Page views at Google.
  32. ↑ (A. Hammond), A Modest Apology, occasion'd by the late unhappy turn of affairs with relation to Publick Credit. By a Gentleman, Infelicis Domus unicus Cliens, (J. Peele, at Lock's-Head in Pater-Noster Row, London 1721), at pp. 28–29. Page views at Harvard University Viewer.
  33. ↑ A. Hammond, 'Introduction. Giving some account of Mr Moyle and his writings', in The Whole Works of Walter Moyle, Esq; (J. Knapton, A. Bettesworth, E. Curll, J. Pemberton, and J. Batley, London 1727), pp. 1–52.
  34. ↑ Goodwin, 'Hammond, Anthony', DNB, citing A. Hammond, 'The Elogium and Character of the late Lord Edward Russel, Earl of Orford, Viscount Barfleur, and Baron of Shingey, &c.', The Present State of the Republick of Letters, vol. VI, article 26, pp. 255–62.
  35. ↑ (A. Hammond), The National Debt as it stood at Michaelmas 1730, stated and explained (J. Peele, at Lock's Head, in Amen Corner, Paternoster Row, London 1731). Page views at Harvard University Viewer.
  36. ↑ Goodwin, 'Hammond, Anthony', DNB, citing Bodleian Library, Rawlinson MS. A. 245.
  37. ↑ Goodwin, 'Hammond, Anthony', DNB, citing Acts of Administration in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, Administration Act Book 1749.
  38. ↑ Courtney, William Prideaux (1890). "Hammond, James" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 24. pp. 246–247.
  39. ↑ E. Cruickshanks, 'Hammond, James (1710-42), of Hanover Sq., London', in R. Sedgwick (ed.), The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1715-1754 (from Boydell and Brewer, 1970), History of Parliament Online.
  40. ↑ Amy's parentage and first marriage are referenced in J. Brooke, 'Dowdeswell, William (1721-75), of Pull Court, Worcs.', in L. Namier and J. Brooke (eds), The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1754-1790 (from Boydell and Brewer 1964), History of Parliament online, note 1.
  41. ↑ The record of the second marriage is printed in H.G. Davis, ed. Charles Davis, The Memorials of the Hamlet of Knightsbridge, with Notices of its Immediate Neighbourhood (J. Russell Smith, London 1859), p. 84.
  42. ↑ Wills of Noel Broxolme, Doctor of Physick (P.C.C 1748, Strahan quire) and Amie Broxolme (P.C.C. 1754, Pinfold quire).
  43. ↑ 'Character given by a Gentleman of himself' (communicated by P.B., 5 December 1809), The Gentleman's Magazine, vol. 79 part 2 (1809 part 2), p. 1121 (Hathi Trust).

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Hammond, Anthony (1668-1738)". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.

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