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1784-1868

 

Eldest son of Thomas Hankey and his wife Elizabeth nee Weaver, of Southborough, Bromley and from 1789 of Fetcham Park; Barnard was born on 31 Mar 1784 in London, almost certainly at Fenchurch Street, and was baptised on 29 Apr at St Dionis Backchurch.

It was with good reason that Thomas Hankey named his eldest son John Barnard Hankey, after his uncle John Barnard who died shortly afterwards in November 1784, leaving his considerable fortune to Thomas. This, the senior line of descendants of Thomas Hankey, has continued to the present day to use the surname Barnard Hankey.

John Barnard Hankey inherited the Fetcham Park estate at the age of nine in 1793, and lived there for the next 75 years. He was educated at Eton from 1796 and at Christ Church, Oxford. On 18 May 1803 his mother Elizabeth Hankey as executrix drew a cheque on Hankey & Co for £500 ‘on account of maintenance for my son John Barnard Hankey’ - no doubt a routine payment towards the running costs of Fetcham Park.

 

John Barnard Hankey

by R. Cosway

 

 

Elizabeth Barnard Hankey

by R. Cosway

 

 

John Barnard Hankey was married on 9 Jun 1807, at St George’s, Hanover Square, to Hon Elizabeth de Blaquiere (1786-1870), daughter of 1st Lord de Blaquiere, by whom he had seven sons and four daughters.

 

 

All of his children, and indeed all his descendants to the present day, have the name Barnard Hankey; Sir John Barnard MP, a celebrated merchant, politician and former lord mayor, was John Barnard Hankey’s great grandfather.

John Barnard Hankey was Lord of the Manor of Fetcham, and High Sheriff of Surrey in 1825. The profession of Banker seemingly held no attraction for him, and it was his younger brother Thomas who became a partner of the family bank. He was a financial adviser to George III and it is possible that a miniature of George III, which was at Fetcham, had been given to him by the King.

 

John Barnard Hankey                        Elizabeth Barnard Hankey

                              By Sir William Beechey

 

 

 

      Lord and Lady de Blaquiere                        Elizabeth Barnard Hankey, 1817

 

 

In 1814 the Surrey Union foxhounds moved to Fetcham Park from Albury, where until 1802 they had been run by John Hankey’s second cousin Rev Samuel Man Godschall (d 1821). Barnard Hankey was Master in 1814; he resumed the Mastership in 1832, and purchased a pack, complete with its huntsman, from Squire Osbaldeston. His son-in-law, Col William Holme Sumner of Hatchlands (possibly jointly with George Barnard Hankey), reigned from 1841 to 1858, and George Hankey’s younger brother, Captain Thomas Barnard Hankey, RN (1813-1896), from 1858 to 1866.

In November 1836, Mary Holme Sumner (nee Barnard Hankey) recorded in her diary that a ‘Dreadful storm of wind W.N.W. blew down at Fetcham 72 trees.’ In May 1837 she wrote that ‘Cubitt comes down to take possession of Fetcham for 3 or 4 months. The family takes a house in London, 20 Great Cumberland Place, Hyde Park.’

In 1851 Barnard described himself as a landed proprietor with about 200 acres, in addition to 500 acres not let. He then had fifteen servants in and about his house and ten on his land. It seems that much of the original estate at Fetcham was leased to Barnard Hankey’s sons, and over the years this land was gradually sold out of the Hankey family, until only about 200 acres remained.

John Barnard Hankey died on 22 Dec 1868 at Fetcham Park, aged 86, and was buried on 28 Dec at Fetcham, leaving an estate of £140,000. His ownership of the Fetcham estate had lasted for a remarkable 75 years.