Zachary Hamlyn

Zachary Hamlyn (1677–1759), of Clovelly and Woolfardisworthy, three miles south-east of Clovelly, Devon, was a lawyer of Lincoln's Inn and thought to be the first Clerk of the Journals of the House of Commons. He made a large fortune and in 1738 purchased the manor of Clovelly from the last of the Cary family, longtime lords of the manor, and made Clovelly Court his residence.

Zachary Hamlyn was the son of William Hamlyn (junior) of Mershwell (alias Marshfield), in the parish of Woolfardisworthy, Devon, by his wife Gertrude Cary (d.1697), daughter of Thomas Cary, MA, whose relationship, if any, to the Carys of Clovelly is not recorded. A ledger stone on the floor of the chancel in Woolfardisworthy Church is inscribed: Here lyeth Gertrude, the wife of William Hamlyn of Marshwell, in this parish, who was buried 8 December 1697.

Surviving sources do not enable Zachary Hamlyn's origins to be connected to the ancient Devonshire gentry family of Hamlyn of Widecombe and Buckfastleigh, resident at Widecombe in 1522 and still at Buckfastleigh in the late 19th century. However, the arms of the Hamlyn family of Widecombe and Buckfastleigh (Gules, a lion rampant ermine crowned or), appear on the monument to Zachary Hamlyn in Clovelly Church. The Hamlyn family is believed to have descended from Hamelin, the Domesday Book tenant in 1086 of two manors (Alwington and Broadhempston) under the Norman magnate Robert, Count of Mortain (d.1090), half-brother of King William the Conqueror. He may have been the same Hamelin who also held two manors in Cornwall from the same overlord. Sir John Hamlyn, of Larkbeare, in the parish of St Leonard, Exeter, father of Sir Osbert, was at the Battle of Bouroughbridge in 1322, and his arms are recorded on the roll of arms of the Knights present: Gules, a lion rampant ermine, crowned or.

According to Worthy (1892), the branch of the family "which long flourished in much repute in Woolfardisworthy" seems to have descended from John Hamlyn, fourth son of Richard Hamlyn, of Widecombe, and brother to Robert and Thomas, paternal and maternal ancestors of the Hamlyn family resident at Buckfastleigh in 1892. The first Hamlyn of Woolfardisworthy was William Hamlyn of Mershwell, whose arms, as previously blazoned, were on two shields in painted glass in one of the windows at Mershwell, with the date 1540. William Hamlyn was born in 1540, and was buried at Woolfardisworthy in 1597. By his wife, Agnes Yeo, of Stratton, he had a son, William, whose son William, of Mershwell, was baptised at Woolfardisworthy, on the 21st day of October 1579. His son, William Hamlyn, married Gertrude Cary, and was buried in 1708. He had issue by her fourteen children, and at his death his son Zachary Hamlyn succeeded to Mershwell. Zachary recorded his pedigree at the College of Arms but did not carry it further back than the William Hamlyn who was buried at Woolfardisworthy in 1597.

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