Robert Vowell alias Hooker

Family and Education b. by 1466, yr. s. of John Hooker alias Vowell of Exeter by 2nd w. Agnes, da. of Richard Drewell of Exeter. educ. ?Camb. 1488. m. (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. 1496.2

Offices Held Bailiff, 1522-3, member of the Twenty-Four bet. June 1523 and Aug. 1524, receiver 1526-7, mayor 1529-30, warden of the bridge Oct. 1533.3

Biography The name Vowell used as an alias by the Hooker family of Exeter did not apparently betoken a connexion with the Vowells of Fowelscombe, who also furnished, in Thomas Vowell, a Member of the Parliament of 1529.

As 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.4

More than five years were to elapse before Hooker, at the age of nearly 70, entered the House of Commons. 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.5

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.6

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558 Authors: L. M. Kirk / A. D.K. Hawkyard Notes 1. Did not serve for the full duration of the Parliament. 2. Date of birth estimated from admission as freeman. 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). 3.Exeter Freemen (Devon and Cornw. Rec. Soc. extra ser. i), 59; Trans. Dev. Assoc. lx. 211; Exeter act bk. 1, ff. 102, 135. 4. C1/745/8; Exeter, Hooker’s commonplace bk. f. 340v; bk. 55, f. 57v. 5. 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. 6.HMC Exeter, 361; C142/60/96; Hooker’s commonplace bk. f. 343v; Prob. 2/226.