John Hoskyns M.P. (1566-1638)
Contemporary of Ben Johnson and Sir Walter Raleigh. Lived a highly dramatic life
An engraving of the Trusty Servant, from a 1579 painting by John Hoskins
John Hoskyns' son Sir Bennett assumed the Hoskyns Baronetcy
FINEM RESPICE:
Consider the end: live so that your life will be approved after your death
OR
Consider the consequences of your actions
Jane Hoskyns Abrahall Bryant was my (Thomas Hoskyns Leonard's) great great grandmother, and Philip Hoskyns Bryant was my great grandfather
MY FAMILY ANCESTRY (includes mistake, I am not obviously descended
from Abrahalls)
HOSKYNS-ABRAHALLS
JANE HOSKYNS-ABRAHALL
FATHER:, JOHN CHARLES
Rev. John Charles Hoskyns Abrahall, my great great grandfather
Headmaster of King Edward's School, Bruton, Somerset (1826-1864)
A Fine Scholar and Severe Disciplinarian.
Hoskyns-Abrahall Tower overlooks the school campus.
History of Bruton
JOHN HOSKYNS-ABRAHALL
FATHER: JOHN
FATHER: JOHN
Rev John Hoskyns-Abrahall. His name was legally changed to Hoskyns-Abrahall under the terms of the will of his cousin Mary Abrahall. He was therefore the first Hoskyns-Abrahall.
SIR JOHN HOSKYNS, Second Baronet
SIR BENNET HOSKYNS First Baronet
JOHN HOSKYNS M.P.
FATHER: JOHN
About the Hoskyns Baronets
Sir Bennett Hoskyns
Sir John Hoskyns, President of Royal Society
ABRAHALLS AND HOSKYNS-ABRAHALLS
Inglestone House
John Abrahall (c.1570-1640) of Ingestone House died without issue, and left his estate to his half-brother, Gilbert Abrahall (b. c.1576), who is curiously invisible in the records. He died between 1640 and 1654, leaving an only son, John Abrahall (d. 1679), who was a major in the Royalist army during the Civil War. He in turn was succeeded by his eldest surviving son, John Abrahall (d. 1703) and grandson Markey Abrahall (1684-1716), one or other of whom probably laid out the formal garden at Ingestone of which some traces remain. Markey, who was High Sheriff of Herefordshire in 1705, died unmarried at the age of 32, and left the estate to his two sisters as co-heirs. The elder sister, Mary (1682-1718), the wife of Gilbert Abrahall (1670-1723) of Ross-on-Wye, gained possession of a moiety which included Ingestone House, but of their children only one daughter survived them, and she died in 1725. Mary had left a complex and rather confused will, under which her share of the Ingestone estate passed, after her daughter's death, to her sister Benedicta (1683-1742), whose second husband was John Abrahall (d. 1734) of Cradock (Herefs). However in 1754 the Rev. John Hoskyns, rector of Peterstow (Herefs), who had been named in Mary's will as the ultimate remainder man, was successful in a legal case against Benedicta's heirs which turned on the interpretation of the (possibly not very well drafted) will, and he obtained possession of Ingestone House and the associated lands. Hoskyns' connection to the Abrahalls was remarkably distant: his grandfather, Sir Bennet Hoskyns (d. 1680), 1st bt., had married the widow of John Abrahall (b. 1622), son of Paul Abrahall (c.1574-1654) of Eaton Tregoze, whose brother Gilbert (b. c.1576) had been Mary Abrahall's great-grandfather. Despite this distant connection, however, he was obliged by the terms of Mary's will to take the name Abrahall.
The Rev. John Hoskyns-Abrahall (1692-1765), as he became, was succeeded at Ingestone by his two elder sons in turn, and they also were obliged to take the name Abrahall. James Hoskyns-Abrahall (1728-86) may have lived at Ingestone, but his brother and successor, the Rev. John Hoskyns-Abrahall (1729-1805), who was rector of Compton Martin in Somerset, did not, and it was probably at this time that the ageing Jacobean house slipped into tenant occupation and began to deteriorate. John was succeeded by his eldest son, the Rev. John Hoskyns-Abrahall (1773-1840), who held a succession of curacies in Somerset and was also non-resident. He sold the estate in 1826 to Alexander Baring, later 1st Baron Ashburton, who took down the old house and replaced it with the present smaller and more informal house, which was perhaps better suited to the needs of his tenants.
CONCLUSION: I am not, after all, descended from the Abrahalls in any direct way. Alas,no hedgehog heraldic motif, unless any Hoskyns-Abrahalls subsequently incorporated this into their coat-of-arms
