Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hoare, Richard (1648-1718)
HOARE, Sir RICHARD (1648–1718), lord mayor of London, born in 1648, probably in London, was grandson of Henry Hoare, a Buckinghamshire farmer, and only son of Henry and Cicely Hoare of the parish of St. Botolph's, Aldersgate. The father was a yeoman and ‘dealer of horses’ in Smithfield (Le Neve, Pedigrees of Knights, p. 481). After serving an apprenticeship to Richard Moore (indentures dated 9 June 1665), Hoare was admitted to the freedom of the Goldsmiths' Company on 5 July 1672. He subsequently became an assistant and warden, and served the office of master in 1712. He set up in business as a goldsmith in or near Lombard Street, probably about 1672 (cf. Brooke and Hallen, Registers of St. Mary Woolnoth, 1886, p. 62). Thence he removed to Goldsmiths' Row, in the parish of St. Vedast, Foster Lane, before 6 May 1674 (cf. baptismal register of St. Vedast). Here he joined his cousin, James Hore, surveyor, warden, and comptroller of the mint, who carried on business as a goldsmith at the Golden Bottle at the western end of Cheapside. He was still living in the parish in August 1690 (ib.), but had removed to Fleet Street in or before 1693 (cf. baptismal register of St. Dunstan's-in-the-West). Like his contemporary, Sir Francis Child [q. v.], he added the business of a banker to that of a goldsmith, and the bank (which still preserves the original sign of the Golden Bottle) has existed in the same spot (No. 37) until the present day. Hoare was one of the goldsmiths authorised by the treasury in 1694 to receive contributions for raising 1,000,000l. on the duty arising from salt, and the new rates of exchange (Lond. Gaz. 9 April 1694). In 1695–6 he subscribed the association roll of the Goldsmiths' Company congratulating William III on his escape from assassination (Wilford, Memorials and Characters, 1741, p. 21 n.) Hoare's financial transactions were on a large scale. In March 1696–7 he joined Child and others in advancing 60,000l. to pay ready money for wrought plate brought into the mint to be coined (Luttrell, Brief Relation, iv. 195). Samuel Pepys was one of his customers, and left him a mourning-ring at his death in 1703 (Diary, 4th edit., 1854, iv. 360–1). He and Child are said to have united to make a run upon the Bank of England in 1707 during the alarm caused by the Pretender's rumoured invasion, but he refuted the charge in a broadsheet dated 16 March (cf. The Anatomy of Exchequer Alley, a contemporary pamphlet quoted in Price's ‘Handbook of London Bankers’). On 28 Aug. 1710 he contracted, with three other merchants, to supply the treasury with 350,000l. for the use of the army in Flanders (Luttrell, vi. 622).
Hoare was knighted by Queen Anne when she dined at Guildhall on Lord Mayor's day 29 Oct. 1702 (ib. v. 231). On 16 Sept. 1703 he was elected alderman for the ward of Bread Street, and sheriff on Midsummer day 1709. He was an unsuccessful court candidate at the parliamentary elections for the city of London in 1705 and 1708, but represented the city in parliament from 1710 to 1715 (ib. v. 552, vi. 295, 633). On Michaelmas day 1710 an unsuccessful attempt was made by the tory party to secure his election as lord mayor, in opposition to Sir Gilbert Heathcote [q. v.], but he succeeded to the office by seniority in 1712. Hoare was president of Christ's Hospital and of the London workhouse, and one of the committee for building fifty new churches in London. He died on 6 Jan. 1718 at his house at Hendon, Middlesex, and was buried on 13 Jan. at St. Dunstan's-in-the-West, where his monument, erected by his son Henry in 1723, still exists. He left a bequest of 200l. to the Goldsmiths' Company for an annual pension to eight poor widows of freemen.
He married, by licence dated 27 July 1672, Susanna, daughter of John Austin of Brittons, Essex, by whom he had eleven sons and six daughters, the eldest being born in 1673, and the youngest in 1694. Of these children four sons and two daughters survived him, viz. Richard, John, Henry (who succeeded him in business), Benjamin (who also joined the firm), Mary (married to Sir Edward Littleton of Pillaton Hall, Staffordshire, bart.), and Jane. His wife died on 24 Sept. 1720, and was buried in St. Dunstan's. His character is eulogised by Wilford (Memorials and Characters, 1741).
His grandson, Sir Richard Hoare (d. 1754), was elected lord mayor of London in 1745, the year of the rebellion, and in 1741 wrote a journal of his shrievalty, which was printed privately by his grandson, Sir Richard Colt Hoare, in 1815. He lived at Barn Elms, Barnes, on the banks of the Thames, and died in 1754. Some letters from him to the Duke of Newcastle are in Brit. Mus. Add. MSS. 32696, f. 44, and 32725, f. 303 (see also Maitland, Hist. of London, i. 654–5; Gent. Mag. 1841, pt. ii. p. 425; Hist. MSS. Comm. 11th Rep. App. pt. ii. p. 20).
Portraits of Sir Richard Hoare and his grandson Sir Richard, engraved by Worthington, appear in Sir R. Colt Hoare's ‘Pedigrees,’ &c., taken from paintings in the author's possession at Stourhead.
[Records of the Goldsmiths' Company; Pedigrees and Memoirs of the Families of Hore of Rishford, Walton, London, &c., by Sir R. Colt Hoare 1819; Hist. of the Hoare Family, by Edward Hoare, 1883; Davy's Suffolk Collections, v. 59 (Add. MSS. 19135), p. 352; Handbook of London Bankers, by F. G. Hilton Price, 1890–1; Nichols's Literary Anecdotes; Raikes's Hist. of the Hon. Artillery Company, i. 250, 313; authorities mentioned above.]