William Hankford

Sir William Hankford (or Hankeford) (c. 1350 – 1423) of Annery in Devon, was an English lawyer, and Chief Justice of the King's Bench from 1413 until 1423.

His parentage is not known, but he came from a gentry family which originated at and took its name from the estate of Hankford, near Bulkworthy in the parish of Buckland Brewer, North Devon. He was probably a younger brother of Sir Richard Hankeford (d.1419/20), who held extensive estates near Bulkworthy.

He was educated at the Middle Temple, appointed serjeant-at-law in 1388 and king's serjeant in 1389. He was employed by the Earl of Devon from 1384, and repeatedly as a royal justice and commissioner in southern England. In 1394 he accompanied King Richard II (1377–1399) to Ireland. He served as Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench for Ireland from 1395 to 1396.

In 1397, King Richard II decided to strike back at the Lords Appellant, a group of noblemen who years earlier had partly usurped royal authority, and had executed several of Richard's favourites. The next year Hankford was among the justices consulted concerning the validity of a legal ruling from 1387 which had declared the Appellants' actions unlawful and treasonable. Hankford expressed his support for the rulings, and said he would have ruled the same way himself.

On 6 May 1398 Hankford was appointed to succeed his friend Sir John Wadham (died 1412) as Justice of the Court of Common Pleas. In 1399 at the coronation of King Henry IV, who as Henry Bolingbroke had in that year deposed Richard II, Hankford was made a Knight of the Bath. In spite of his loyalty to the deposed King Richard II, Hankford was reappointed by Henry IV in October 1399, and shortly after appointed a Justice of the King's Bench. In the following years he distinguished himself and was appointed Chief Justice of the King's Bench at the accession of King Henry V in 1413.}

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