Sir Hugh Cholmeley, 4th Baronet

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Hugh_Cholmeley,_4th_Baronet

Sir Hugh Cholmeley, 4th Baronet (21 July 1632 – 9 January 1689) was an English politician and baronet.

Born at Fyling Hall, near Whitby in Yorkshire, he was the second son of Sir Hugh Cholmeley, 1st Baronet and his wife Elizabeth Twysden, daughter of Sir William Twysden, 1st Baronet. Cholmeley succeeded his nephew as baronet in 1665, and was afterwards appointed Governor of Tangier in Morocco by King Charles II of England

From February to August 1679, he was a Member of Parliament (MP) for Northampton, and from 1685 to 1687 for Thirsk.

On 19 February 1665, Cholmeley married Lady Anne Compton, oldest daughter of the 2nd Earl of Northampton at Hamerton in Huntingdonshire. They had a daughter, but no son, so with his death the baronetcy became extinct.

• from The Whitby Mole

Upon completion of the pier, Sir Hugh Cholmley found that his engineering skills had been noted and held in the highest regard, eventually winning him a royal commission to build a gigantic Mole (a defensive harbour wall) in Tangier.

Up until 1661 the sea port of Tangier in Morocco had been under the rule of the Portuguese, but was ceded to England as part of the dowry of Catherine of Braganza on her marriage to Charles II.

Sir Hugh Cholmley arrived in Tangier in June 1663, bringing with him 'about 40 masons, miners and other proper artists and workmen'. Apparently it was with considerable persuasion that he had managed to attract these artisans, because it was ‘a place where, in the beginning, so many men had died’.

When eventually the Mole was finished in 1676, it was described as ‘in its design the greatest and most noble undertaking in the world’ and was said to be 'now near 470 yards long and 30 yards broad, with several pretty houses upon it and many families. On the inner side twenty four Arched Cellars and before them a curious walk, with pillars for mooring of ships'. Also housed on the Mole was a vast array of guns readied for the port’s defence.

Sadly the commissioning of the Mole seemed to be the only success story of the English occupation of Tangier, as in all that time the management of the city itself had been left to Governors who had very little interest in maintaining a profitable and sustainable outpost on the North African coast. It was in 1680 that Whitehall finally ran out of patience and money and decided that Tangier had become expendable.

Links

• thepeerage.com
• The Gentleman's Magazine, and Historical Chronicle, Volume 58, Part 2 page 618. "Review of new publications" - An account of Tangier. By Sir Hugh Cholmley, Bart. With some account of himself and his journey through France and Spain to that place, Where he was ... in the time of King Charles the Second; By: Hugh Cholmley

Citations

1. [S15] George Edward Cokayne, editor, The Complete Baronetage, 5 volumes (no date (c. 1900); reprint, Gloucester, U.K.: Alan Sutton Publishing, 1983), volume II, page 129. Hereinafter cited as The Complete Baronetage.

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2. A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Extinct and Dormant Baronetcies ... By John Burke, Sir Bernard Burke. Page 114.