Count Mortain fought with William the Conqueror at Hastings and receiving enormous tracts of land all over the country. The Count had two followers, Nigel Fossard and Richard de Surdoral. These two got most of his Yorkshire lands. In 1085 Fossard, among other manors, held the manor of Hode (Hotham), about 660 acres as well as a mill. When the Normans drove out the Saxons who lived there and replaced them with their own retainers.

One of Fossard's followers was a knight called William, father of Durand-de-Houdhum. This William (1100-1166) is supposed to be the first recorded ancestor of the Hothams.

Sir Geoffrey-de-Hotham, often called Sir Gilfred, was Lord of the Manor of Cranswick in the nineteenth century. Cranswick was the oldest manor belonging to the Hothams. F. Ross stated that in 1315 a Galfredus-de-Hotham was Lord of the manor of Hutton cum Cranswick.

Before the thirteenth century dawned, the Hothams had established themselves at Scorborough. They held this under the Percys, who were then at Leconfield Castle. John-de-Hotham was the first to take up residence there, though still under the age of 21. Scorborough was in their possession until it was burnt down in the eighteenth century.

Sir John Hotham Then we come to the most famous of all Hothams, especially in the annals of East Yorkshire. Sir John Hotham, the first Baronet, Governor of Hull and his son John, usually known as Captain Hotham. The elder Hotham was knighted in 1621 by James I. He also had five wives in twenty-eight years and was returned as Member of Parliament for both Appleby in Westmorland and Beverley. He decided to sit for Beverley as it was nearer, and because he thought he could exercise more influence there. In 1641, the Royalist army had left an arsenal in Hull. King Charles I wrote to Sir John Hotham announcing his intention to join his son, James, Duke of York, who was already in the town. (Hotham had been invested with full authority by both Houses of Parliament, to maintain and retain the guns and ammunition in all circumstances). On 23rd April 1642, he called a meeting at his residence, now called Ye Olde White Hart Inn (dubbed by the then locals, The Plotting Parlour). With a majority vote, the gates of Hull were closed to the King. Sir Hotham tried to explain the divided opinion of the town to him, but he was dubbed a traitor. Civil war was imminent. A three-week Royalist siege of Hull ensued. Sir Hotham escaped but was arrested near his Manor in Scorborough. Taken to London on board the ship 'The Hercules,' Sir John and his son were imprisoned in the Tower. The Commons issued an order that money, plots and good of Sir John and Captain Hotham be seized and £1000 be used to pay the garrison of Hull and £500 to pay soldiers at Beverley.

On 30 November 1644, Sir John was brought before a court martial at the Guildhall London. His son Durrand of Lockington, who was a lawyer, conducted his defence, though to no avail, and he was condemned to be executed on 16 December.

Lady Hotham tried without success for a pardon, but only got a stay of execution until 24 December to give her husband more time to settle his affairs. A petition was sent to the Commons that Sir John's life should be spared, but after some wrangling between the Lords and the Lower House, it was dismissed and the execution was announced for 4 January.

As Captain Hotham, his son, had also been found guilty and was to be executed on 1 January, it was decided that the father should follow him to the block the next day, 2 January, 1645.

On the scaffold, Captain Hotham proclaimed the innocence of himself and his father and laid his head on the block. With one blow, his head was severed from his body. His brother, Durand Hotham wrapped it in a scarf and laid it with his body in a coffin. In a similar fashion, also with one blow, Sir John Hotham died at the age of fifty-six and was buried in All Hallows, Barking. This is how the historian A.W.M. Stirling wrote of Captain Hotham's death:

'The night preceding the execution of the young officer, his wife Isabel, from whom he had been separated during his imprisonment, was allowed to visit him in the Tower. She quitted him only in the morning when he was led out to die. And in the dawning of that year, which to the one was to bring death and the other bereavement, the sorrowful couple bid each other a last fare well. Nine months later Isabel gave birth to a son, Henry, but who, the child of tears and grief, sank to an early grave.'

Captain Hotham left one son, John, 13, who inherited the estate.

John Hotham had been married five times; first to Catherine, by whom he had Captain Hotham, Richard, Margaret and Frances; secondly Anne, by whom he had William and Durand; then third to Jane by whom he had several children, all of whom died in infancy; fourth to Catherine, who had 2 children, both of whom died in infancy; and lastly to Sarah Anlaby, in 1634, by whom he had Dorothy (died aged 9 in 1645), Alathea, Sarah and Catherine.

After the death of Sir John Hotham, the property was restored to John (1632-89), the eldest son of Captain Hotham, with his uncle Durand acting as guardian. John married in 1650, to Elizabeth (1633-97), the only daughter of Sapcote, 2nd Viscount Beaumont of Swords in Ireland. He became MP for Beverley in 1678 and became embroiled in the exclusion crisis. He went into exile in 1684 and returned returned with William of Orange in 1688. He was appointed Governor of Hull in January 1689. He caught a chill while travelling from Hull to Beverley and died on 6 April the same year.

Sir John and Lady Hotham (Elizabeth Beaumont) had seven children, two of whom survived to adulthood. John, their son, married (against their wishes) Catherine, only child and heiress of John Heron Esq of Beverley. He was subsequently disinherited and his marriage failed. Their daughter, Bridget, married at the age of 12, to William Gee Esq of Bishop Burton. She died of smallpox in 1675, leaving an 8 year old daughter.

After the death of Elizabeth, the estates reverted to a cousin, Charles Hotham (1663-1723), who became 4th baronet and Colonel of the Royal Regiment of Dragoons.

When the house at Scorborough burnt down in 1701, the family moved to South Dalton, where the present house was built 1771-6.

It is probable that Durand, the son of Sir John, who died on the block may have lived at the Manor House, Front Street, Hutton. The date on the front says 1884, but that was the date when it was rebuilt. There will have been a Manor House there for centuries before that. Durand Hotham was appointed Justice of the Peace in 1649 after the Civil War was over, and was still in office in 1694. He was a lawyer of no mean ability (he had acted as lawyer to his father and brother), and a friend of the Quakers, though history does not tell us whether he was one himself. Like all the other Hothams he seems to have been a staunch Protestant. George Fox, the founder of the Quakers, said he visited Justice Hotham at the Manor House, Cranswick, in 1651 and described him as being 'a pretty tender man.'

This was the time when Fox, hearing what he called a great high priest preaching near Hutton Cranswick shouted to him 'Come down thou deceiver, dost thou bid people come freely and take of the water of life freely, and yet thou dost take £300 a year from them for preaching scriptures to them.' Fox himself was thrown into prison during the Civil war for refusing a captaincy in the Commonwealth army.

After successive generations, in 1908, all the estates in Hutton Cranswick were sold by auction. There were 841 acres of land and the farmsteads that went with them, also 19 cottages in Hutton and Cranswick. Some of the farms and the cottages were bought by the sitting tenants, so after eight hundred years the Hothams relinquished all connection with this parish.

Landed family and Estate Papers, University of Hull

Many papers survive from this family, including diaries and correspondence, from the 13th century, numbering some 25,000 items.

The Diary of John Jackson, sometime macebearer in 17th century Beverley, Pamela Hopkins.

A tale of two villages, Hutton and Cranswick, Herbert Johnson.

Original document source

Sponsor This Site

Top of Page

A very special thanks to Hull Local Studies Library for their help with our research projects.