Francis Hare-Naylor

Francis Hare-Naylor (1753–1815) was an English historian, novelist and playwright. He eloped with the painter Georgiana Hare-Naylor and they had most of their children abroad. They returned to Herstmonceux when his father died. Georgiana died in Lausanne; Hare-Naylor then sold family property at Herstmonceux and never returned.

Early life He was the eldest son of Robert Hare-Naylor of Herstmonceux in Sussex, canon of Winchester (son of Francis Hare), by his first wife, Sarah, daughter of Lister Selman of Chalfont St Peter, Buckinghamshire. Sarah died when Francis was a child. The raconteur Augustus John Cuthbert Hare attributes the loss of his kinswoman to:

a chill brought on by eating too many ices when over-heated by dancing at Sir John Shaw's, at Eltham, leaving to the Hares a diamond necklace, valued at £30,000, and three children, Francis, Robert, and Anna Maria.

His father took as his second wife another heiress, Henrietta Henckell. She persuaded her husband into demolitions of Herstmonceaux Castle, for the construction of a house to be settled on her own children.

Francis Hare-Naylor had a legacy from his mother, and lived almost entirely in London. There he formed a friendship with Charles James Fox, and became one of the circle around Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire at Chiswick. She introduced him to her cousin Georgiana Shipley, fourth daughter of Jonathan Shipley, who had learned painting in Joshua Reynolds's studio. Her eldest sister Anna Maria was the wife of Sir William Jones. After his wife's death Hare-Naylor never returned to Herstmonceaux, and in 1807 he sold the estate. In April 1815 he died, after a lingering illness, at Tours, and was buried beneath the altar of Herstmonceaux Church. to Georgiana Hare-Naylor on her deathbed, entrusting the care of her daughter to Lady Jones The four sons of Francis with Georgiana Hare-Naylor, Francis, Augustus, Julius, and Marcus, were born in Italy, and a daughter, Anna Maria Clementina. Georgiana died in 1806.

In 1807, Hare-Taylor married again, to Anna Maria Mealy née Hamilton, widow of Ridgeway Mealy, an officer of the 2nd/18th Madras Native Infantry who had died in 1805 in the Nandi Hills. She was a relation of his first wife. Gustavus Edward Cockburn Hare (1811–1881), a Prussian Army officer, civil servant and landowner. Reginald John Hare (1812–1895), Sub-Inspector of Constabulary in Australia