Thomas Vernon (lawyer)

Thomas Vernon (25 November 1654 – 5 February 1721) was an English chancery lawyer, and Whig MP for Worcester. He was probably born at Hanbury Hall.

Thomas Vernon was the great grandson of Rev Richard Vernon, and was descended from the Vernons of Whatcroft, who were related to the medieval Barons Vernon of Shipbrook, Cheshire.

Rev Richard Vernon was born in Audley, Staffordshire, and was presented to the living of Hanbury, Worcestershire, in 1580. It was a rich living, and Richard married well, and by the time of the death of his grandson, another Richard, in 1679, they had built up some landholdings in Hanbury and the surrounding parishes.

Richard Vernon (1615–79) studied in the Middle Temple, and may have practised as a lawyer in London in the civil war period, and in 1672 sent his eldest surviving son Thomas to study there as well, and he completed his legal studies in 1679 when he was called to the bar. When a student, Thomas was fortunate to have caught the eye of one of the leading chancery lawyers of the day, Sir Anthony Keck.

Born in 1630, Keck had been called to the bar of the Inner Temple in 1659, and was elected a bencher (a member of the governing body) in 1677. On 4 March 1689 he was named a commissioner of the great seal with Sir John Maynard and Serjeant Rawlinson by the new King William III – these commissioners replaced the notorious Lord Jefferys as Lord Chancellor, who fled as James II left the country. Knighted the next day, Keck held office till 14 May 1690. He also served as MP for Tiverton from 1691, and he died in his house in Bell Yard, off The Strand in December 1695. Keck died a very rich man, and had had to provide for no less than nine daughters, and on 5 January 1680 one of them, Mary, was married to the young Thomas Vernon.

Thomas and Mary had no children, and instead Thomas concentrated on his legal career. No doubt with the help of his father in law, he soon established himself as a successful lawyer in the court of chancery. The family’s two residences in Hanbury – Astwood and Spernall Hall – were occupied by other members of the family, so Thomas and Mary spent their early years in London in his house at Bell Yard, opposite the entrance to the Middle Temple. But in 1692 his unmarried uncle John Vernon died in Spernall Hall, and from thence forth Thomas used it as his Hanbury residence. There is some evidence in the will of his uncle that rebuilding was already taking place, but it was not for another 10 years that Thomas Vernon started the main rebuilding campaign that resulted in building of Hanbury Hall, an elegant brick mansion that still stands today.

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