Hooke Family Of Southampton, England

William Hooke, a distinguished Puritan clergyman, was born in 1601, in Southampton and died in London, March 21, 1678. His remains rest in Bunhill Fields, London. He bore the same Arms with slight variations to those of the Bramshott family. He married Jane Whalley, sister of one of the Regicide judges who sentenced Charles I to death. Her mother was Frances Cromwell, aunt of the Protector.

After graduating from Trinity College, Oxford, he went to New England in 1640, founded a church at Taunton, Massachusetts, and later (1644) moved to New Haven, Connecticut, where for twelve years he assisted John Davenport, founder of the City, in his work in the first Congregational Church. Here he remained until 1656 when he and his son John, who had recently graduated from Harvard College, followed the wife and mother who had gone to England in 1654. At the command of Oliver Cromwell he became his private Chaplain and Master of the Savoy Hospital until the close of the Commonwealth.

His son, John, born 1634, died 1710, was minister at Basingstoke.

A tablet to the memory of William Hooke may be seen in Center Church, New Haven, and literature of that church says that the property known as "Hooke's Lot" at the corner of College and Chapel Streets, New Haven, which Rev. William Hooke gave to the church upon his departure, when offered for sale to the Trustees of the Collegiate School in 1717, was the inducement which caused Yale University to locate in New Haven rather than Wethersfield or Saybrook.

A very interesting thing brought out by the record of this family of Southampton is the fact that it espoused the Cromwellian cause, also that it drew away from the Church of England and became Puritan in belief. Other records indicate that the family was divided during that trying period (see "Rural Life in Hampshire" by W. W. Capes), but it is possible that this served to protect both sides when either was out of sympathy with the government in power. This was proved in one case where one branch of the family interceded with Parliament for rights that had been withdrawn from another branch.

On the whole, the family stood with Parliament and was treated with consideration by it.