HASELL, Samuel (1617-c.1685), of Sudbury, Suff.

Details of Samuel Hasell’s ancestry are scanty. The Hasells, who were never armigerous, cannot be ranked among the gentry families of Suffolk. Their standing was largely confined to their home town of Sudbury, where, for several generations, they played a prominent part in local affairs. Samuel’s father, William, rose to become bailiff of the town in 1627 and its mayor in 1630 and 1639.10Winthrop Pprs. ii. 38, 57; E. Stokes and L. Redstone, ‘Cal. of the muniments of the borough of Sudbury’, Proc. Suff. Inst. Arch. xiii. 292-4, 310; C219/42/2, f. 22. Daniel Hasell, born in 1610, was probably the eldest of William’s sons. The next son, Abraham was born in 1614, but he was already dead by the time Samuel was born in early 1617.11All Saints, Sudbury par. reg. There seem also to have been two other brothers, William and James.12PROB11/381/378. The area of Suffolk around Sudbury was still dominated by the cloth trade, making it unsurprising that this was evidently the trade into which Samuel was apprenticed. He was later variously described as a mercer or a clothier.13Al. Cant. ‘Samuel Hassell’; PROB11/381/378. He married his wife, Martha, at some point before 1641, when their only son, Samuel junior, was born and it is almost certain that John Amis of Bocking, Essex (who appointed Samuel as the supervisor of his will in 1647) was Martha Hasell’s brother.14All Saints, Sudbury par. reg.; PROB11/200/116.

Hasell’s family connections provide some clues as to his religious affiliations. His brother James is likely to have been a nonconformist. At some point in 1657, James married Sarah Dunkon, a daughter of Robert Dunkon*, the Ipswich nonconformist tanner who had sat as one of the Suffolk Members of the 1653 Nominated Parliament.15Suff. RO (Bury), EXY4/W1/189; PROB11/336/290; PROB11/335/82. James’s eldest son, James, later went on to marry Hannah Petto, daughter of the leader of the Congregational church in Sudbury, Samuel Petto.16PROB11/379/382; Oxford DNB, ‘Samuel Petto’; Calamy Revised, 388. Among the nonconformist ministers in Suffolk with whom Petto was closely associated were the three Manning brothers, John, Samuel and William, and it is possible that Samuel and James Hasell were also related to them, through their brother-in-law Thomas Manning of Braintree, Essex.17Calamy Revised, 336-7; Oxford DNB, ‘William Manning’; PROB11/381/378. It would help explain Samuel’s prominence in Sudbury during the 1650s if he was indeed among those who particularly benefitted from the new religious freedoms.

Hasell’s early public career is obscure. In about 1651 he seems to have been involved in the collection of the assessment tax in the town and by 1654, when his name appears on one of its orders, he was a member of the corporation, probably with the rank of alderman, the highest beneath that of mayor.18Suff. RO (Bury), EE501/2/7, unfol. On 10 July 1654 he and his colleagues signed the election indenture which confirmed John Fothergill’s return as MP for the town.19C219/44/2, f. 29. It was probably in early 1658 that he contributed 13s towards the cost of purchasing a pair of new maces.20Suff. RO (Bury), EE501/2/7, unfol. The grant of a new charter to the Sudbury corporation in July 1658 confirmed him as one of the six aldermen. When the newly-appointed corporation met on 26 July to appoint a mayor, they offered the position to Hasell. He was sworn in on 6 September, three days after the death of Oliver Cromwell*.21Suff. RO (Bury), EE501/2/8, pp. 1-3. Among his first duties must therefore have been to arrange for the proclamation naming Richard Cromwell* as the new protector to be read in the town: he paid out 10s to the troops in attendance on that occasion.22Suff. RO (Bury), EE501/2/7, unfol. His position as the first citizen of the borough is likely to have worked to his advantage and in the next elections, held at Sudbury on 14 January 1659, he was elected, along with Fothergill, as one of the two Sudbury MPs. Fothergill was another local man, who had previously been one of Hasell’s colleagues on the corporation and who had represented the town in the 1654 and 1656 Parliaments. Despite Fothergill’s experience, Hasell’s precedence as mayor entitled him to the senior seat. Once the pair reached Westminster, their activities in Parliament are unknown. It was presumably because Hasell was in London that it was necessary for the deputy mayor, William Abbot, to preside in his place at the council meetings held on 18 and 22 April 1659.23Suff. RO (Bury), EE501/2/8, pp. 10-11.

Hasell stepped down as mayor in September 1659 on completing his year in office.24Suff. RO (Bury), EE501/2/8, pp. 14, 16; EE501/4/1, f. 2. His accounts as mayor show that during that year he had received £71 7s 7d and had paid out £55 2s 2d. The £14 he paid in about 1661 to the then mayor, John Cooke, is likely to have been the surplus from this account.25Suff. RO (Bury), EE501/2/7, unfol. Shortly before the expiry of his mayoral year, Hasell was appointed to the Suffolk commission of the peace, a sure sign that he could now be counted among the local gentry.26C231/6, p. 441. His decision in 1659 to send his only son, Samuel junior, to be educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge, also confirms how far he believed the status of the family had risen.27Al. Cant. It is conceivable that it was this son rather the father who was the ‘Cornet Hassel’ appointed to the July 1659 militia commission.28A. and O.

Since Hasell’s rise had in a large measure been due to his approval of the prevailing government during the 1650s, much of the local importance he had gained vanished with the return of the king in 1660. In the short term he remained a Sudbury alderman. He attended the parliamentary election held by the corporation on 22 April 1661, only to remain silent when it came his turn to vote.29Suff. RO (Bury), EE501/2/8, p. 30. He acted alone and his refusal to support any of the candidates was all the more pointed given that all four of them (Thomas Waldegrave†, Isaac Appleton†, Sir Robert Cordell† and Sir Thomas Barnardiston*) had supported Parliament during the 1640s and had held local office during the protectorate.30HP Commons 1660-1690, ‘Sudbury’. Eleven months later, after Appleton’s death created a vacancy, Hasell brought himself to vote for Cordell, on that occasion the only candidate.31Suff. RO (Bury), EE501/2/8, p. 42. His modest contribution of £3 to the voluntary present to the king in late 1661 would be consistent with unhappiness with the new regime.32E179/257/7. At some point between October 1662 and October 1663, he ceased to serve as one of the aldermen and there can be little doubt that he was one of those removed under the provisions of the Corporation Act for refusing to renounce armed rebellion and the Covenant.33Suff. RO (Bury), EE501/2/8, p. 54-5.

Some other members of the Hasell family moved away from Sudbury in late 1662, but Samuel himself remained.34Suff. RO (Bury), EE501/2/8, p. 54. He could probably afford a comfortable lifestyle: his house in St Peter’s parish in 1674 had ten hearths.35Suff. in 1674 (Suff. Green Bks. xi. 13, 1905), 273. In addition, he had also acquired several farms close to Sudbury, at Preston and Great Cornard.36PROB11/381/378. This was the extent of his estates at the time of his death, which was probably during the third quarter of 1685. Under the terms of his will (proved in November 1685), these lands were left to his widow as a life interest and then to their son. Each of the five daughters of Samuel junior received £500 from their grandfather.37PROB11/381/378. The male line from Hasell survived only until Samuel junior’s death in 1700.38St. Peter’s, Sudbury par. reg.; PROB11/457/187. His father was the only one of the Hasells of Sudbury ever to sit in Parliament.