Jonathan Hanmer

Jonathan Hanmer (1606–1687) was an English ejected minister.

Life A younger son of John Hanmer (alias Davie, died April 1628), and Siblye Downe his wife, he was born at Barnstaple in Devon, and baptised there on 3 October 1606. He attended Barnstaple grammar school, was admitted to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 1624, and graduated B.A. in 1627, and M.A. in 1631. He was ordained on 23 November 1632 by Theophilus Field; instituted to the living of Instow, Devon, the same year, he later held the vicarage of Bishops Tawton, from 1652.

From 1646 to 1662 Hanmer was lecturer in the church at Barnstaple. He gained a reputation as a preacher, but declined an invitation to preach before the archdeacon in 1635. In 1646, when Martin Blake, vicar of Barnstaple, was temporarily suspended, a petition was signed by the mayor and other residents of the town to the Devonshire committee of commissioners for the approbation of public preachers, requesting the appointment in Blake's absence of "Mr. Hughes or Mr. Hanmer." Hanmer undertook fundraising work for Eliot, and channeled money directly to him, avoided the Massachusetts Corporation (New England Company).

Family Hanmer's wife Catharine died in May 1660. Besides his son John Hanmer (1642–1707), a nonconformist minister, they had at least six more children. Their daughter Katherine (8 August 1653 – 2 June 1694) married on 5 October 1673 William Gay (1649–1695), second son of John Gay of Frithelstock. They settled in Barnstaple, and John Gay the poet was their youngest child.