HOOPER, Edward (1593-?1664), of Chilworth, Hants, and Boveridge, Dorset.

The Hoopers seem first to have achieved prominence and wealth in the person of John Hooper†, a Lincoln’s Inn lawyer, who represented Salisbury in four mid-sixteenth century Parliaments and who left to his heir land in Wiltshire, Dorset, Hampshire and Somerset.28HP Commons 1509-1558. Our MP’s grandfather Edward Hooper (d. 1619) of Boveridge, Dorset, and his father Thomas Hooper (d. 1638) are to be distinguished from their extensive cousinage in the region with whom they maintained close connections, and with whom they shared first names, as well as friends among the elite.29PROB11/133/495; PROB11/177/753; Cranborne par. reg.; Hants RO, 19M56/E/T47, 56-9. In particular, although Boveridge was in the parish of Cranborne, it was Thomas Hooper’s younger brother, also called Thomas Hooper (d.?1654) of Lincoln’s Inn and Peartree, Hampshire, who was from 1610 keeper of Cranborne Chase and a long-standing servant of the earls of Salisbury; confusingly, his son and heir was another Edward.30PROB11/237/507; LI Admiss. i. 144; SP14/57, ff. 96-7; HMC Salisbury, xxii. 17, 58, 209, 278, 292; xxiv. 234, 261, 263, 281. Both Thomas of Boveridge and Thomas of Lincoln’s Inn were involved in Wiltshire politics in the mid-1620s, each deploying two much-courted votes at Old Sarum (and possibly also at Salisbury) elections.31HMC Salisbury, xxiv. 261, 263; HP Commons 1604-1629, ‘Old Sarum’. Thomas of Boveridge perpetuated the godly and reforming zeal of their father and his circle: in his will of 1638, which specified rings for Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper* and Denzil Holles*, he established a trust to provide money for poor artificers, excluding those ‘common drunkards, haunters of alehouses, [and] lazy and idle persons’.32PROB11/177/753.

Edward, son and heir of Thomas Hooper of Boveridge, continued the link with Lincoln’s Inn. He was admitted in October 1614 at the request of John More†, serjeant-at-law, and one of the most prominent godly lawyers in Hampshire, who was recorder of Winchester, Portsmouth and Romsey, and who represented Hampshire constituencies in the Parliaments of Elizabeth I and James I.33LI Admiss. i. 168; HP Commons 1604-1629. Edward Hooper allegedly began his career as More’s ‘clerk’, although this may underplay his role.34Richard Symonds’s Diary, 128-9. Within a few years of the More’s death in 1620, Hooper married his younger daughter Anne. The death of Anne’s young brother left her a co-heiress with her sister Dowsabell, wife of Edmund Dunch*, and following a division of the inheritance, through his wife Hooper acquired an estate at Chilworth in Hampshire reportedly worth £7,000 a year.35PROB11/136/315; C2/Jas I/D11/15; VCH Hants, iii. 468; iv. 453. The couple took up residence in that county, perhaps by 1624, when their elder son was born.36Al. Ox.

Hooper was named a subsidy collector in Hampshire in 1628.37Hants RO, 44M69/G4/1/99. He compounded for knighthood in 1630 at £17 10s, and was sufficiently respected to be pricked as sheriff in 1633.38Add. 21922, f. 176; Corn. RO, ME 2886, 2882-3; List of Sheriffs (L and I ix), 56. In the later 1630s he was appointed to the commissions of the peace for both Hampshire and Dorset, in the latter case some months before the death of his father, who also served there; he retained his place in both counties at least until 1660.39Hants RO, W/K1/15; Coventry Docquets, 65, 73, 76. Meanwhile, he also maintained his family’s Wiltshire links. In 1633 his kinsman William Eyre I* secured the admission to Lincoln’s Inn of his young son, also Edward, together with another connection, Giles Tooker, son of Edward Tooker* of Salisbury.40LI Admiss. i. 222. When he settled the Boveridge estate in 1639, Hooper chose William Eyre and Edward Tooker as his trustees, alongside his uncles William Whitaker*, a Dorset lawyer, and Thomas Hooper.41Hants RO, 19M56/T60.

When civil war broke out, Edward Hooper supported the parliamentarian cause, and late in 1642 was listed among the Hampshire deputy lieutenants who were active in raising horses in the county, and in providing forces for Southampton.42Add. 24860, f. 9; HMC 11th Rep. III, 28. He was added to the county committee in July 1643.43Add. 24860, ff. 42, 53, 53v, 71, 74, 145; LJ vi. 125a; CJ iii. 157b. By May 1644 he was among those with a particular responsibility for Portsmouth, and that summer, with Richard Whithed I* dispensed money for its defence in advance of money arriving from central funds.44CSP Dom. 1644, p. 150; CJ iii. 553a, 648a. However, a few months afterwards he fell foul of the factional divisions which threatened the parliamentarian war effort in the county. That October he was apparently discharged as treasurer for the receipt of money in the Fawley division of the county.45Add. 24860, f. 80. Although Hooper was involved early in 1645 in the collection of money for Ireland, when he was mooted as a potential new governor for Southampton, the more militant previous holder of the post, Colonel Richard Norton*, complained (in May) of the ‘misery’ such an appointment would cause the town: recalling ‘how unwillingly he hath been drawn to action heretofore’, Norton claimed that Hooper was ‘a man of all England I least suspected that he should be proposed or that he would accept of it’.46Add. 24860, ff. 94, 113, 116. On 5 June family friend and peace party leader Denzil Holles reported to the Commons the nomination of Hooper as governor, but the same day the House received a letter from Hooper pleading disablement through infirmity as a reason for declining ‘so great a charge’, and accepting it, directed the committee responsible to find an alternative.47CJ iv. 164b. A month later Norton’s preferred candidate, his subordinate officer Captain John St Barbe*, was confirmed in the post.48CJ iv. 196b. For a while Hooper’s participation in Hampshire affairs, like that of other ‘moderate’ parliamentarians, was reduced, although he appeared in November among those nominated to the first Presbyterian classis.49Add. 24860, f. 125; King, Bor. and Par. Lymington, 262-3.

Possibly Hooper retreated to his estate in Dorset, where his uncle Thomas Hooper recorded plundering and exactions from both sides in Cranborne.50HMC Salisbury, xxii. 392. In December 1646, perhaps as a substitute for, and at the recommendation of, another family friend and political moderate, Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper (who went on to fill the same position in Wiltshire), Parliament agreed to the appointment of Edward Hooper as sheriff of Dorset.51CJ iv. 732b, 739b. Evidence as to his tenure of office has not appeared. Over the next few years, and into the commonwealth, he continued to be named to a certain number of local offices, but generally seems to have kept his head down.52A. and O. He was probably assisted by that same enduring network of kin and friends across Wiltshire, Dorset and Hampshire, and familial charitable impulse to which the will of his uncle Thomas (drafted in 1652 and proved in 1654) testifies, and for which Edward Hooper was an overseer with his cousin Henry Whitaker†.53PROB11/237/507.

Like other moderate parliamentarians in the area, Edward Hooper resurfaced during the protectorate. It was probably he, as a freeman of the city, rather than his cousin Edward Hooper of Pear Tree and of Hurn Court (son and heir of the above-mentioned Thomas), who was in the delegation from Winchester which presented a petition to Parliament on 28 September 1653 calling for the preservation of tithes to maintain a preaching ministry.54Hants RO, W/B1/4, f. 156v; Humble petition of the well-affected of the county of South-Hampton (1653, E.714.8). Likewise, in December it must have been he to whom, with Richard Cromwell* and others, council of state referred the reconciliation of differences between the city’s mayor and the aldermen.55Add 24860, f. 152v; CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 287. In January he was specifically added to the assessment commissioners for Dorset.56CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 371.

In 1654 Hooper was returned for Hampshire to the first protectorate Parliament. Presumably his connections among more experienced Members underpinned a clutch of quite significant early committee appointments on matters such as abuses of printing, Scottish and Irish affairs, and (notably) to consider the bill for the recognition of the protectoral government (22, 25, 29 Sept; 5 Oct.).57CJ vii. 369b, 370a, 371b, 373b, 380a, 387a. His legal training partly explains his nominations to committees to consider the ordinance for regulating the chancery court (5 Oct.), reform of the office of the shrievalty (4 Dec.), and legislation passed since the dissolution of the Rump in April 1653 (added 15 Jan. 1655).58CJ vii. 374a, 394b, 415b. Two committee nominations to deal with individual petitions included one addressing a petition from the former MP for Southampton Thomas Levingston* (21 Nov.), while his final appearance in the Journal during the session was his naming to the committee on public debts (18 Jan.).59CJ vii. 380a, 387a, 419a. Altogether, Hooper’s profile seems quite high for a novice, yet he made no recorded contributions to debate.

Hooper was re-elected to the 1656 Parliament. However, following receipt of evidence of his involvement in an alleged plot in Hampshire, he was prevented from taking his seat as part of the policy of excluding suspected opponents of the regime (19 Sept.).60TSP v. 329, 396-7; CJ vii. 425a. It is possible that he was subsequently allowed to resume his place. There is no evidence of his attendance, but in February 1657 he may have been the Edward Hooper who was appointed by the Commons to a commission to undertake an investigation into a Hampshire matter.61CJ vii. 491b.

Hooper sat in no further Parliaments. However, he signed the ‘Humble Address’ of the Dorset gentry to Charles II at the Restoration and continued to serve on local commissions.62The humble address of the nobility and gentry of the county of Dorset (1660) (669.f.25.44); SR. When he drew up his will in March 1663, in the tradition of his family he left money for the encouragement of the industrious poor in Romsey. Other beneficiaries included Matthew Davies* and Sir Gerard Naper* (who had both been royalists), and Lord Ashley (Anthony Ashley Cooper). He died sometime between adding a codicil on 9 June 1663 and 5 December 1664, when the will was proved.63PROB11/315/380. He was succeeded by his eldest son, (Sir) Edward Hooper.64Shaw, Knights of Eng. ii. 241 After the latter’s death in 1676, the estates passed to Edward Hooper of Hurn Court and Pear Tree.65PROB11/350/602; PROB11/343/23; Hants RO, 19M56/E/T1, 3, 4; 19M56/E/B2; C54/4442/23. No further member of this family sat in Parliament.