Sir Thomas Hanmer, 4th Baronet

Sir Thomas Hanmer, 4th Baronet (24 September 1677 – 7 May 1746) was Speaker of the House of Commons from 1714 to 1715, discharging the duties of the office with conspicuous impartiality. He is, however, perhaps best remembered as being one of the early editors of the works of William Shakespeare.

He was the son of William Hanmer (b. c1648 in Angers, France, d. c1678?, the son by his second marriage of Sir Thomas Hanmer, 2nd Baronet), and of Peregrine, daughter and co-heiress of Sir Henry North, 1st Baronet, of Mildenhall, Sussex.

He was born between 10 and 11 p.m. in the house of his grandfather Sir Thomas Hanmer, 2nd Baronet, at Bettisfield Park, near Wrexham, Clwyd, Wales (formerly Flintshire). His father William seems to have died early, and Thomas was educated in Bury St Edmunds, at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford, matriculating on 17 October 1693, age 17. His tutor was Robert Freind, D.D., who was later under-master at Westminster in 1699, and headmaster 1711-1733. Hanmer gained his LL.D., however, Com. Reg. from Cambridge University in 1705.

He succeeded as 4th Baronet in 1701 when his uncle, the 3rd Baronet Sir John Hanmer, died in a duel leaving no issue.

He was a high church Tory M.P. for Thetford, 1701-2 and 1705-8; for Flintshire, 1702-5; and for Suffolk, 1708-27. He was unanimously elected Speaker of the House of Commons in February 1714, during the last Tory government for over 100 years; the Tory party was split between those (like Hamner) who wished to maintain the Protestant succession in Britain, and those with jacobite tendencies who supported James Stuart, the 'Old Pretender' of the Jacobite succession. After the death of Queen Anne in August 1714, George I brought in a government composed entirely of Whigs. The House of Commons was dissolved in January 1715, and Hanmer was not put forward for re-election: in his stead Spencer Compton (later 1st Earl of Wilmington and Prime Minister) was elected Speaker on 17 March 1715, although Hannmer continued to serve as an MP until 1727. The Tory party was proscribed from government office until 1760 and the accession of George III.

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