Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hooke, John
HOOKE, JOHN (1655–1712), serjeant-at-law, eldest son of John Hooke, born at Drogheda in 1655, was educated at Kilkenny, and on 28 June 1672 entered as a pensioner at Trinity College, Dublin, under the tuition of Richard Acton of Drogheda. He became a student of Gray's Inn on 3 Feb. 1674, and was called to the bar on 8 Feb. 1681. In 1697 he was a candidate for the office of chief justice of Chester, and was considered to have a fair prospect of success (Luttrell, Diary, iv. 216). He rose to the degree of serjeant-at-law on 30 Nov. 1700. After holding a Welsh judgeship till 1702 he was, in or before 1703, appointed chief justice of Carnarvon, Merioneth, and Anglesey, an office to which he was again appointed in 1706. In 1707 Lord Bulkeley preferred a complaint against him for demanding presents, which was tried before a committee of the House of Commons, and in spite of his explanation, that it was merely a customary present from the town of Beaumaris, which he and his predecessors were in the habit of receiving, he was found guilty by the committee, but was subsequently cleared by the house on the report by 178 to 130 votes. He died poor in 1712, leaving among other issue by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Major-general Lambert, a son, Nathaniel or Nathanael (d. 1763) [q. v.], author of a history of Rome. His wife survived him till 26 Jan. 1736.
[Woolrych's Eminent Serjeants; Wynne's Serjeants-at-Law; Gent. Mag. 1736; Luttrell's Brief Relation.]