Lawrence Hyde (died 1590)

Lawrence Hyde I (died 1590) was an MP who founded the influential Hyde family of Wiltshire.

He was the son of Robert Hyde of Norbury, Cheshire by his 2nd or 3rd wife Katherine Boydell, daughter of a certain Boydell of Pulcroft, Cheshire.

During the reign of King Henry VIII he was a clerk in the auditor’s office of the Exchequer. He was first employed in Wiltshire by the influential Sir John Thynne of Longleat. Following the Dissolution of the Monasteries he served as a commissioner for the surveying and suppression of chantries in Wiltshire and Salisbury in 1548. At some time before 1552 he was appointed auditor to Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford, uncle of King Edward VI. He served as surveyor of crown lands in Somerset after 1575. He was a JP for Dorset and/or Wiltshire in about 1589. He was elected MP for Malmesbury in 1559, Heytesbury in 1584 and possibly for Chippenham in 1586, which tenure may be confused with that of his son Lawrence II.

His various positions enabled him to acquire much land, much due to the Dissolution of the Monasteries. In 1549 for about £1,250 He purchased lands in Bymerton, Milton, a house in Salisbury and elsewhere in Wiltshire, and small properties in Somerset, Derbyshire and Kent. His principal acquisitions included:

Hyde married twice:

Hyde died on 7 June 1590 and was buried at Tisbury, where a monument survives and mentions his son Henry, the father of Lord Clarendon.

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